


some summers

by thesehands



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Behavior, Coming of Age, First Time Blow Jobs, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish Richie Tozier, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Underage Sex, Not Canon Compliant, Period Typical Attitudes, Semi-Slow Burn, Sexual Content, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Underage Smoking, discussions of mental health & ADHD & AIDs, the rest of the gang make appearances but i'm not character tagging them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesehands/pseuds/thesehands
Summary: Sometimes, Eddie caught Richie staring. More often than not, he would make a face or stick out his tongue, and Richie would return it, exaggerated and playful. But other times, Eddie stared back. Richie could feel a blush rising in his face as Eddie held his gaze, level and calm, not curious or judgmental, simply looking. When that happened, Richie would always be the one to look away. He’d quickly turn to another one of their friends and crack a joke, which would make everyone groan or laugh or tell him to shut up, and it would take his mind off Eddie and the way his face got pink when he was outside for too long.or: five summers that richie and eddie spend together.





	1. SUMMER 1990

**Author's Note:**

> good evening...welcome to this. first i want to stress that this is canon-verse but it's not canon-compliant...they're going to remember each other forever and also there are no clowns. please also take note of the tags. these characters are gay people living in america in the 90s, there's homophobia, there's AIDs, there's repression, and all of it is mentioned in this fic. this conforms mostly to movie canon, except i've taken some things from the book to round out characterization etc. richie tozier is gay, jewish, and has ADHD. eddie kaspbrak is short, loves his friends, and doesn't die at the end. we're having fun, we're loving life.  
thank you to amy and jo for beta-reading and cheer-leading and also for some truly exceptional google doc comments, including, "lucinda i hate this fic" and "IT'S TEARSVILLE".  
this fic is completed (almost) and updates will be Regularly (whatever that means) OR i will post it all at once when i get it finished and beta-ed. whatever the outcome, you'll be as surprised as i am. okay thank you for reading don't forget to like comment and subscribe xo

> _ "Even when I look away, I am still looking. I am inside my body and he is inside his body and it matters less and less. Shared face, shared looking. A collaboration." _
> 
> _ \- _Richard Siken 

* * *

JUNE

* * *

When Richie Tozier was six years old, Harvey Milk was assassinated in San Francisco. He was almost too young to remember it, but he read about it on the microfiche newspaper archive at the library. The headline was six words, _ City Supervisor shot dead in California _, and the accompanying paragraph was succinct, just facts, fewer than forty words. There was no mention at all of the riots that happened when the man who shot Harvey Milk got away with it. That same year, a man was murdered in Derry. He was beaten to death and then thrown off a bridge into the river. His body was recovered from the Barrens, decomposed nearly beyond recognition, but that hardly mattered. Nobody came to identify him. 

_ The Derry Herald _ had even less to say about this. Three words, _ Local man dead, _and six sentences, stating there were no leads and there would be no funeral service. Richie didn’t remember it at all, but he’d heard about it, and he knew why that man had been murdered. He also knew the police never tried to find out who killed him. 

In the years since these occurrences, Derry hadn’t changed much. It seemed to exist in a bubble, where nothing ever changed, not for better or worse, like the town's moral code was slowly stagnating. Horrible things happened, like Bill’s little brother drowning in the river when he was only six, or Beverly’s dad existing at all, or the way Henry Bowers treated Richie, but there were good things, too. People got cancer and went into remission, and Stan’s dog lived to be seventeen, and Beverly’s dad went to jail and she got to stay with her aunt. Richie always assumed that’s just how life was supposed to be; a little bit good, and a little bit bad. Even if sometimes it seemed like everyone in Derry was purposefully ignoring the bad only when it happened to certain people, Richie tried not to think about that too much. 

He was fifteen now, and he’d known about this particular habit of Derry’s for years. He’d experienced it firsthand, that year when Henry Bowers and his gang had chased him out of the arcade and down the street and into an alley. They’d backed him against the dumpster behind the dentist’s office where Richie’s father worked, and Richie had covered his head with his hands and tried to stop envisioning the newspaper article about his untimely passing. _ Local boy slain, _three words, and the accompanying story barely a paragraph. No police investigation. A closed casket funeral. His mother, dressed all in black, crying, and his father, also crying, but in a detached, masculine sort of manner. Richie didn’t die, and there was no newspaper article, but his father did cry when he found his son behind a dumpster with his ribs broken and his lip split. 

Because of that incident, Richie had spent a few months in the hospital, and missed a lot of school, so he had to see a tutor after school every day. Working with a tutor was even worse than being in the hospital. Sometimes the annoyance radiating off of the unfortunate senior who’d been roped into keeping Richie from flunking out was too much to bear. Richie wasn’t stupid, and he resented being treated like he was. He was, in fact, brilliant, he just had what his second grade teacher had politely called _ too much energy, _ and the principal called _ focus issues, _ because the principal wasn’t allowed to say anything rude. Richie’s tutor, however, thought he was _ fucking annoying. _ It was a fair assessment, Richie supposed, but he thought his tutor was _ fucking rude _ for saying so.

On the day of his last tutoring session before summer vacation, Richie recited his homework to himself under his breath on his way to the library, trying to make it stick. He didn’t care about his tutor’s opinion, but he didn’t want anyone to think he wasn’t trying, and sometimes the only way he could retain information was to memorize it and repeat it verbatim. He was halfway there, and nearly mentally prepared to face his tutor’s scowl when Stan intercepted him. 

“Did you hear?” Stan’s hair was falling in his face, frizzy and lank with sweat. 

“Yeah, everybody heard about your mom, Stan,” Richie stepped to the side and attempted to walk around him. 

“Richie, come on,” Stan stepped in front of him. “This is serious.”

“No, you come on. You know I have to meet my tutor,” Richie said shortly, and tried stepping around him again. 

“Henry Bowers is in jail,” Stan all but shouted. 

Richie didn’t turn to face him immediately. “Don’t fuck with me, Stan.”

“Richie, seriously? I wouldn’t fuck with you about this,” Stan came up behind him and nudged him gently. “He’s in jail.”

“Why?”

“He killed his dad.”

Richie looked at Stan. He exhaled slowly, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Holy shit.” 

“Yeah,” Stan didn’t smile, but he didn’t look too torn up about it, either. “The chief wants him put away for life.”

“How’d he do it?” Richie asked, his tutor forgotten. 

“Stabbed him in the throat,” Stan shuddered at that. “Really messy.”

Richie whistled. “How’d you find out?”

The door at the end of the hall burst open and in came Ben and Eddie, holding aloft several copies of _ The Derry Herald. _

“Did you tell him?” Eddie shouted, his eyes wide. “Did you?”  
  
“I did,” Stan confirmed. 

“What’d he say?” Ben asked. He and Eddie had run up to them, panting slightly, practically bouncing on the balls of their shoes in anticipation of Richie’s reaction. Eddie hopped from one foot to the other, and Richie watched him bemusedly. His polo shirt was damp with sweat, and there was a flush high in his cheeks.   
  
“He said _ holy shit,” _Stan said. “But I don’t think he believed me.”

Eddie held up a newspaper in front of Richie’s nose. “Here, look. Read it.” 

Richie leaned back a little and focused his eyes on the front page. It was there, in bold block letters, _ decorated Policeman stabbed to death. _ There were multiple paragraphs detailing Mr. Bowers’ illustrious career, and at the end, like a bow on a gift box: _ His son, Henry Bowers, has been remanded into police custody, pending investigation. _

“Holy shit,” Richie said again, but it was a murmur. There were tears swimming in his eyes, and a giddy hysteria building in his chest. “Holy shit.” 

Stan, Eddie, and Ben were grinning. It was a macabre scene, four teenage boys near enough laughing over a grisly patricide, but they couldn’t be faulted. 

“He’ll never bother you again, Rich,” Eddie said as he waved the newspaper. “He’s gone.” 

Richie meant to spit out another _ holy shit _, but instead, he choked on a sob. Eddie and Stan sobered immediately and flanked either side of him, ready to shield him from passing eyes. 

Ben, who had never seen Richie cry before, looked dismayed. “We didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” Richie said feebly. 

Stan passed him a handkerchief. “Could’ve fooled us.”

“He’s gone, guys,” Richie blinked away tears as he wiped his nose on the back of the hand holding Stan’s handkerchief.

“Oh, fuck, gross, Rich, come on,” Eddie grabbed the handkerchief out of Richie’s hand and scrubbed furiously at the drying snot on his knuckles. “You’re disgusting.”

“I can’t believe you’re being a little bitch to me right now, on this, the day of my daughter’s wedding,” Richie intoned in his best mobster voice, which wasn’t very good to begin with, and sounded even worse while he was crying. 

Stan made a face. “Eddie is not being a little bitch.”

“Here,” Eddie shoved the handkerchief back into Richie’s hand. “Wipe the boogers off your face. You look like you’ve got rabies.”  
  
Ben grinned. “He kind of does.”

“Well, ladies,” Richie held the handkerchief aloft between two fingers, “this has been lovely, but I must parlay to the library.” 

“That’s not what parlay means,” Stan corrected, but Richie merely blew him a kiss and dramatically tossed the handkerchief in the air as he departed. It didn’t flutter as he’d hoped, since it was pretty laden with snot, and it fell quickly, coming to rest on Eddie’s sneaker. 

Eddie’s eyes widened impossibly. His mouth fell open. “Rich. Richie. Get your fucking handkerchief,” but Richie was already halfway down the hall, and ignored his calls. 

“I’m gonna kill you!” Eddie shrieked after him. 

Richie turned the corner and pressed his body against the wall. He could hear his friends still talking as they walked in the opposite direction down the hall; Eddie was whining about his shoe and Stan was whining about Richie. 

Stan said, “I hate you two.”

“You should burn that,” Ben joked of the handkerchief. 

Eddie started talking then, a rapidfire slew of facts about bodily fluids and how unsanitary handkerchiefs were, it really was much safer to use Kleenex, but eventually his voice faded and Richie heard the door slam. At that moment, all the air went out of him, and he sank to the floor. This time yesterday he’d been hiding in the administrative bathroom because Henry had been chasing him with a knife, calling him names and threatening to finish what he’d started. Now, Henry was gone, and the hall was quiet. Four years of terror, of bullying and fear, over just like that. One newspaper headline, and Richie could walk to class without being taunted. It was almost too good to be true. 

The sense of relief was almost overwhelming, and there were so many feelings tearing at him, Richie couldn’t process them all. He sat on the floor in the hall and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore. It was clear he wouldn’t make it to his tutoring session that afternoon, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He thought about Eddie running up to him, ecstatic to share the news. 

_ He’ll never bother you again, Rich, _ Eddie had said. Richie knew what Bowers had done to Eddie, everyone did, but Richie had never told anyone what had really happened behind the dumpster that day. His friends had guessed it was serious, mostly because he refused to talk about it, but also because sometimes there was a vacancy behind Richie’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. He wasn’t sure if it had been more serious than calling someone _ Girly Boy _ and breaking their arm, but he appreciated that his friends saw the impact Henry had on him. But now, Henry Bowers would never bother him again. 

Richie closed his eyes and laughed. 

* * *

JULY 

* * *

There were not a lot of things Richie did not know about Eddie. He knew he didn’t really have asthma, that he got anxious in small spaces, that he really liked awful pop music, and was afraid of hospitals. He was also afraid of needles, cancer, knives, broken glass, alleyways, clowns, sewers, losing his inhaler, leprosy, and sometimes, his mother. But right now, the one that seemed most pressing was his fear of the dark. He’d been afraid of it for as long as either of them could remember, and it had never been a problem before, but tonight they were all having a sleepover at Bill’s house. It was the first one Eddie had ever been allowed to attend, and he was going to have to sleep in the dark.

Richie was standing next to Eddie, their shoulders brushing, as Eddie stared down the stairway that led to Bill’s attic bedroom. 

“The lights are on right now,” Richie supplied helpfully. 

“Thanks,” Eddie said dryly. 

“We’ll just ask him to leave a light on,” Richie told him. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I don’t want anybody to know,” Eddie hissed. “If you tell anybody, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“Geez, fine,” Richie started climbing the stairs. “Put your sleeping bag wherever.”

“Where’s yours?” Eddie asked. 

Richie’s face split with a wicked grin. “Why? You wanna spoon?” 

Eddie had, in fact, wanted to be close to Richie, because he imagined it might be easier for him to get through the night if he knew someone he trusted was next to him, but Richie’s comment made his skin feel hot. “No,” he said flatly. “I want to make sure we are on opposite ends of the room.”

“Sure thing, Spaghetti,” Richie replied easily, unbothered by Eddie’s sudden temper. 

Bill’s room was enormous. There was enough space for everyone to spread out their sleeping bags and not touch anybody else, but Richie and Stan had still placed theirs next to each other, right in the middle of the room. Mike was tucked into the corner behind Bill’s bed, Bill was parallel to the dresser, and Ben had won the coin toss, which meant he got to sleep in the bed. Eddie spread his sleeping bag out next to Bill’s night table, near Richie, and the door. 

His hands shook slightly as he made himself comfortable, pillow tucked under his shoulder, extra blanket wrapped around himself, inhaler within reach. When everybody had settled in, Bill turned off the lights. Eddie’s breath caught in his chest as the room was suddenly plummeted into darkness, but after a moment, he relaxed. Bill’s room had huge windows along one wall, and they let in plenty of moonlight, enough that Eddie could make out shapes of people and furniture in the darkness. He watched as Richie made shadow puppets in a beam of light, a duck, a dog, and something that was probably supposed to be a penis. Stan slapped Richie’s arms down after that one. 

Eddie had often imagined what a sleepover would be like. He assumed it would be loud and messy, and it would probably be difficult to sleep. His house was always deathly quiet at night, and any sort of sound would bring his mother to his room, so it was strange that the noise didn’t seem to stop when the lights went out. Bill and Mike talked in low voices, punctuated by laughter, and Richie pestered Stan until Ben told him to be quiet. The noise was nice, Eddie decided. It made him feel less alone. Somehow, between Stan sharply whispering, “That’s not fucking funny, Richie,” and Ben snoring, he fell asleep. 

He dreamed he was in his own bed, and his mother was standing over him, holding a pillow. She was murmuring something incomprehensible, but when Eddie opened his mouth to ask her what she wanted, he couldn’t speak. His mother stepped towards him, still holding the pillow, and looked down at him while she spoke. 

“They can’t help you,” she said. “There’s no cure for what you have. I tried so hard to raise you well, but you went out into the world and got something they can’t fix. Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I warn you about this? About the world, and what you could catch? There’s no cure for this, Eddie-bear.”

“Mama,” Eddie said, but it came out as a strained whimper. _ What have I got? What’s wrong with me? _

“But it’s okay,” his mother continued. “I’m going to fix it. They can’t fix you, but I can. I can help you. I can’t cure it either, but I can put you out of your misery.”

Eddie’s entire body jolted at that, and he tried to scream, but nothing came out. It was like he was outside of his body and inside of it at the same time, watching himself experience this. 

“Just be still now, baby. It’ll be over soon. I’ll take care of you, like I always do. You’ll feel just fine when you wake up.” 

Somehow, Eddie knew what she was going to do, so when she slowly leaned over him and pressed the pillow over his face, he didn’t register surprise. Just panic. His mother was stronger than him, he knew that, but even if she hadn’t been, he was frozen in place. He wasn’t sure if it was part of the dream, or the sheer terror coursing through his body like a shot full of adrenaline.

“Stop, mom,” he tried to say, but his mouth was full of pillowcase, and his cries of protest only made her bear down on the pillow harder. “Stop. Stop, you’re killing me. Mommy, stop.” 

His chest felt tight and his eyes burned. His mother was whispering to him, saying _ relax baby, I’m helping you, _and Eddie felt like screaming, but he couldn’t. He jerked violently, and it threw her off balance enough that the pillow shifted and he grabbed her wrist. He pulled, kicked, and when there was enough space between his face and the pillow, he screamed. He pulled in deep lungfuls of air, and screamed. 

“Eddie!” she shouted. “Eddie! Be quiet! It’s alright, Eddie, don’t you understand? Eddie!” 

Eddie clawed at her, kicking and screaming. His hand struck something soft, and there was a pained hiss as he dug in his fingernails. The pillow was gone now, and someone pressed something into his hand. It felt like his inhaler.

“You have to calm down,” someone said, and it didn’t sound like his mother. “Eddie, wake up. Come on, it’s okay, look, here’s your inhaler, stop screaming. You’re scaring Ben.”

_ Ben. _

Eddie opened his eyes and saw darkness. There were things moving in the dark, and they were people shaped, monster shaped, mother shaped. He felt like screaming again. 

“Don’t scream, it’s just us, we’re gonna turn on a light, it’s okay,” the voice continued, right next to his ear. Someone was stroking his hair and another hand grabbed his inhaler from him, shook it, and put it back in his hand. “There you go. Steroids oughta wake you up. C’mon, Eds.” 

The familiarity of the nickname clued Eddie in to his surroundings, and the terror drained out of him like a breath. 

“Richie,” he whimpered. “Richie, it’s dark.” 

“I know, Bill can’t find the light switch, despite the fact he’s lived in this house _ his whole life _,” Richie raised his voice slightly and directed the last part over his shoulder.

“Fuck off, Richie,” Bill’s voice said. 

The lights came on, and a few people groaned at the sudden shock. Eddie took a moment to place himself. He was entangled in his sleeping bag, and his pillow was gone. Richie was kneeling over him, his glasses eskew and his eyes wet with what looked like tears. Behind Richie, he could see his friends sitting in a clump, in various states of disarray. Ben looked the worst of all, his eyes wide in fear and concern. Eddie’s inhaler was still in his hand. There was a scratch on Richie’s cheek, stark pink, like someone had taken a marker and drawn several sharp lines from his cheekbone to his lip. 

“Did I do that?” Eddie’s eyes landed on the scratch. “Did I hurt you?”  
  
“It’s okay,” Richie said, and that was answer enough.

“Oh, no,” Eddie shook his inhaler violently, and stuck it in his mouth. He took two sharp inhales, and then tossed it to the floor. “I hit you?”

“You were asleep,” Richie sat back on his haunches. “It’s okay.” 

“But it hurt you. You’re crying.”

“That’s not why I’m crying, Eds.”

“What?” Eddie sat up and began untangling himself from his sleeping bag. “I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”  
  
“Does your mom hurt you?” Richie asked suddenly.  
  
“Richie!” Stan’s voice came from somewhere in the room, sharp and scolding. 

Eddie froze. “What?” 

“You were saying _ mommy, you’re killing me, _” Richie’s voice hitched painfully in his throat. “What was she doing to you?”

“It was just a nightmare,” Eddie murmured. “I have them all the time. I’m afraid of the dark.”

“Does she hurt you?”  
  
“Richie, leave him alone,” Mike said. “It’s late. We shouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“Yeah,” Bill interjected. “I’ll leave my lamp on so you don’t have any more dreams. You should’ve told me you were scared of the dark. We could’ve taken a nightlight out of Georgie’s room.” 

Eddie nodded at Bill, but he was looking at Richie. There was visible distress on Richie’s face, and he was still crying. 

“I have to clean out the scratch,” Eddie said. 

“No,” Richie reached up and pushed his glasses aside so he could wipe his eyes. “It’s fine. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“Richie,” Eddie said plaintively. “Please. It could get infected.”

Richie snorted at that. “No way. I bet you have the cleanest fingernails on the planet, Spagheds.” 

“There’s first aid stuff in the bathroom downstairs,” Bill said. “Just don’t wake up my parents.” 

Eddie led the way down the stairs, body still shaking with adrenaline. Richie followed him, his footsteps lighter than Eddie thought possible. He felt like he should say something, maybe apologize, or tease him about how quiet he was being, but he still felt guilty and on edge. It didn’t feel like the time for jokes. 

The bathroom door squeaked when Eddie opened it, and he winced. The room itself was small, a half bath with decorative towels and a bowl of seashells on the back of the toilet. With Richie seated on the closed toilet so that Eddie could reach his face, there was only just enough space for Eddie to stand in front of the sink. When he turned to Richie, he was nearly standing between his legs. Eddie didn’t think about it. One of the bulbs in the light fixture was dead, which left the room dim and slightly yellowed, but he could see to do what he needed. 

Richie’s gaze was trained on the braided rug beneath their feet. He didn’t look at Eddie. The atmosphere was tense while Eddie pulled the supplies out from under the sink and quickly went to work. His hands still shook as he wet a cotton ball with peroxide and reached out to hold Richie’s chin.

Richie hissed when Eddie dabbed at his cheek with the antiseptic.   
  
“Sorry,” Eddie murmured. 

“It’s okay,” Richie kept his eyes down and stared at the seam on the toe of his socks. 

“I am," Eddie said softly, and when Richie looked at him with confusion, "I am sorry. For this.” 

“You don’t have to be,” Richie said forcefully. “Ever. It’s okay. I understand.” 

It was quiet again. Eddie could hear the clock ticking in the hall, counting off the seconds, and his heartbeat synced up with it, fast and even. In the ninety eight seconds it took him to clean the scrape, Richie didn’t meet his eyes once. Eddie knew Richie wasn’t mad, and he knew Richie would never hold something like this against him, but he still felt that maybe he owed Richie something. Not an olive branch, because they weren’t arguing and Richie hadn’t done anything wrong, but something. 

“I have those dreams a lot,” Eddie found himself saying as tossed the dirty cotton ball into the trash can and reached for the Neosporin. “Where I can’t move or breathe.”

Richie glanced up at him briefly. He looked like he wanted to ask something, but decided against it. Instead, he hummed in acknowledgement, and looked back down at the floor.

“Can I tell you something?” Eddie asked. He dabbed ointment onto Richie’s cheek.

“Of course,” Richie said. 

“I hate my mother,” Eddie’s voice was quiet.

“That’s okay,” Richie tracked Eddie’s movements as he tossed out the cotton ball and reached for the bandaids. Eddie was used to having Richie’s eyes on him, but this time it felt different. After Richie had just spent so long _ not _ looking at him, his gaze held weight. His eyes on Eddie’s hands felt like a touch, like a physical thing, and it sent shivers up Eddie’s arms. 

“She’s never hit me,” Eddie swiftly opened two large bandaids and surveyed Richie’s wounds. “But sometimes I feel like she doesn’t know how to love me when I’m not sick. And sometimes I wish she would just hit me and get it over with. Maybe that would be easier than everything else. A bruise is a bruise, right? But all that other shit. I don’t know what to do, most of the time.” 

Richie didn’t reply. Eddie gently applied the bandaids, and smoothed them down with the pads of his fingers. He tried to ignore the way Richie’s eyes followed his every move. 

“That’s a horrible thing to say, I guess, I don’t know. There are kids out there whose mothers do hit them and maybe I shouldn’t be jealous. Maybe my mom is right, maybe I am sick. Maybe she was right and she was doing the right thing and I stopped her. Am I sick, Richie? Is that bad? To wish she was hurting me in a way I understood? I don’t know. I’m sorry. She’s right, probably, and she told me there was no cure, and I didn’t want to believe her, but I’ve never had a dream about her before. She’s never been in them. Usually it’s monsters, or lepers, people with wounds and needles and they’re all over me. It’s never just her. What if it means something?” 

“Hey,” Richie reached out and cupped Eddie’s chin with his hand. 

In the yellow light of the bathroom, Richie looked ill. The shadows under his eyes were deep purple and there was a sallow cast to his skin. He was folded in on himself oddly, like his skin didn’t fit him right and he wanted to shrink back into it, to make it suit him again. His eyes were still red with tears, and his hands were clammy against Eddie’s skin, like he had a fever. 

Eddie’s breath caught in his chest and he automatically reached for his inhaler. He didn’t want Richie to be sick. Maybe Eddie was contagious. Maybe it was his fault that Richie looked like that, tired and sad, with bandaids on his face and a weary weight on his shoulders. 

“Stop, Eds,” Richie whispered. “You’re gonna have another panic attack.”

“Okay,” Eddie took a deep breath. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Richie smiled. “How about you?” 

“Fine,” Eddie echoed. It was true. The adrenaline had long dissipated, and Richie’s hand on his chin was warm and grounding. He felt fine. 

“Okay then,” Richie dropped his hands from Eddie’s face and stood up. “Let’s go back to bed.” 

Richie stood up, and reached for Eddie’s hand. Their fingers slid together, and Eddie reached up with his free hand to turn off the light. He followed Richie down the hall and back to Bill’s bedroom. Stan was asleep, so he didn’t notice when Richie moved his sleeping bag to be next to Eddie, but he didn’t say anything the next morning, either. Eddie didn’t know why, but he was grateful. 

* * *

AUGUST 

* * *

Richie was twelve when he started smoking, and nearly fifteen when he decided to quit. It had absolutely nothing to do with Eddie’s less-than-quiet judgement. At least, that’s what he told Stan. Stan didn’t believe him either. Mostly because Richie would come over to Stan’s to smoke. There was a giant back porch at Stan’s house, what Stan’s mom called _ the veranda, _and Richie would sit out there and work his way through a pack. He ashed his cigarettes in a potted cactus and took the butts away with him, just in case. 

It had become a routine over the summer, for Richie to go to Stan’s house and not even come in the front door. He would climb the fence, walk through the back yard, and station himself on the rocking chair he’d laid claim to over four years ago. The summer had gone by quickly, and Richie had spent most afternoons with the toe of his sneaker dug into the porch while he rocked himself in the chair and smoked. 

He liked to believe it was some big secret mission, like nobody had noticed him rocking up a storm and chain smoking his way through the better part of the summer, but the truth was that Stan’s parents liked Richie. He was a bit loud, a bit rude, but he knew not to make mom jokes about Mrs. Uris, and as Stan had mentioned, it probably meant a lot to them that Stan had another Jewish friend. So, as long as Richie didn’t smoke in the house, they let him have free reign of the _ veranda. _

In August, the humidity was out of control. Richie’s glasses were constantly clouded by heat, and his hair was an un-tamable mess of curls and knots and frizz. Stan’s curls were neatly combed and gelled, but still stuck to his forehead with sweat. Richie liked that. 

“What’s so funny?” Stan asked. He was on the porch swing, with his legs folded underneath him and a book in his lap.

“Nothing, Staniel,” Richie said. He ground his cigarette into one of the pebbles in the cactus pot. “Just admiring you.”

“Okay,” Stan said slowly. “You were smiling, though.”  
  
“It’s just cute when your curls stick to your forehead, that’s all,” Richie said. As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t unlike him to say something that any other person might regret, but he wasn’t used to the panic that settled into his chest, the fear that maybe he really had said something he shouldn’t. 

Stan’s eyes were wide. “Okay. Thanks.” 

“Sure, no problem, any time, Stan,” Richie squeaked. With trembling hands, he lit another cigarette. 

“I thought you were quitting,” Stan said. He had put aside his book and was watching Richie.

“It helps me think,” Richie said.   
  
“Your medication would also help you think, but you won’t take it.”  
  
“It slows me down,” Richie held the cigarette between his lips and looked down at his fingernails. “I’m not funny when I’m taking it.” 

Stan laughed. “You’re funny?” 

“Yeah, okay, trash the trashmouth, even when he’s baring his soul to you, I get it, I see how it is.” 

“Oh, come on, Richie,” Stan said gently. “I was teasing.”

“Sure,” Richie pulled on his cigarette and then held it between two fingers. He held his breath until his eyes watered and his ears buzzed. When he exhaled, Stan was still watching him. 

“I’m not mad that you said I was cute,” Stan said. 

Richie started coughing. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and pounded his chest with his fist. There were tears in his eyes, but he attributed them to his choking, and not to his fear. 

“What?” he managed, his throat tight.

“I won’t tell Eddie,” Stan’s lips were pulled into a tight, odd smile. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Stan, stop,” Richie stood up. “Seriously, this isn’t funny.” 

“What?” Stan looked genuinely surprised at Richie’s distress. “Why are you so upset?” 

Richie paused. He didn’t know why he was upset. He wasn’t sure how to explain the heavy, ever present fear that he lived with, and how sometimes he would accidentally knock it loose and he’d be scared to death that it would never leave him, until it became dormant again and easier to ignore. Richie was a smart kid, and he knew that whatever had him so spooked was probably something he’d conflated, maybe the remnant of an old nightmare or a summer afternoon in an alleyway behind a dumpster with a boy holding a baseball bat and Richie so afraid he would die if he didn’t stop doing whatever it was that made them call him_ that _word. 

“I don’t know,” he finally said. 

“I’m not mad,” Stan said carefully. He hadn’t moved from the swing. 

“I know,” Richie told him. Stan knew Richie better than any of his other friends, and he knew it was counterproductive to get angry with Richie. “I’m just scared.”

Stan’s eyebrows drew together. “Of what?”

Richie ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what, exactly.”

“Does this have something to do with Henry Bowers?” 

Richie hadn’t been expecting that question, and he didn’t want to answer it, so instead he said, “Sometimes I want things.”

Stan looked at him strangely. “Like what?”

“Boys,” Richie’s voice was a little strangled. He looked down at his empty hands. “I look at them and I want to touch them. I shouldn’t want that, right?”

Stan looked a little stunned by this admission. “Shit, Richie, I don’t know. Which boys?”

“Eddie,” Richie said immediately. “He has freckles, did you know that?”

“Yeah? They’re right there on his face, I see them every day.”

“Yesterday I was thinking about kissing them. He has twenty-two freckles,” Richie continued. He closed the distance between himself and Stan and sat down on the porch swing. “I want to kiss him. All the time.” 

“Holy shit,” said Stan. “That’s...a lot. Is that what scares you?”

“Wanting to kiss Eddie isn’t scary,” Richie said. “Other people finding out that I want to is terrifying.”

“Even Eddie?”

“Even Eddie.”

“Is that what Bowers was always on your case about?” 

Richie tensed up at the name. “He didn’t know. He was just full of shit.”

“But he used to say things like that?”

“Yeah,” Richie said. He dug the toe of his sneaker into the porch and pushed off it, rocking the swing back and forth gently. 

“You know he said that shit to Eddie too, right?” Stan didn’t turn to look at Richie. “When he broke his arm, it was ‘cus Eddie told him not to call him Girly Boy anymore.” 

“He told Bowers what to do?” Richie didn't bother to hide the admiration in his voice.   
  
Stan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and he got his arm broken.” 

“Holy shit,” Richie said. “I knew he was tough, but holy shit. How come he never told me?”

“The same reason you never told him about what happened in the alley.” 

Richie pushed his glasses up his nose. “Is it the same?”

“I think so,” Stan looked over at him, then. His face was serious. “I think you guys are more alike than you know.” 

Richie didn’t say anything else, then. He gave the swing one last push and brought his legs up beneath him. They stayed like that for a few minutes. Stan picked at the loose threads in the hem of his pants, and Richie let the gentle rocking of the swing soothe him. 

“I don’t think I’m going to tell Eddie,” Richie said.

“That’s your decision,” Stan said, in a voice that told Richie he believed it was a bad decision. 

“I didn’t even want to tell you,” Richie admitted. 

“You don’t have to be ashamed of it, Richie,” Stan pushed his curls off his forehead. “It’s your business, though. And for the record, I don’t mind that you think I’m cute.” 

“Good,” Richie grinned at him. “‘Cus I think you’re just so adorable, I could kill you. I could just wrap you up in a blanket and squeeze you until you stopped wriggling.” 

Stan huffed, but he was smiling. “Weirdsville.”

Richie’s eyes were full of admiration and gratitude when his grin widened and he said, “Exactly.”


	2. SUMMER 1993

> _If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.   
__\- _Jane Austen

* * *

JUNE 

* * *

Richie Tozier was seventeen, and he was bigger than his skin. He grew nearly two feet in eight months, so quickly that his mother refused to buy him any new clothes until they were sure he was finished. So, his shoes were always too small and his sleeves were too short and there was an inch of bare ankle between the cuff of his jeans and the top of his socks, which only added to the stress of his adolescent gawkiness. Little Richie Tozier was now long and stringy and lanky, and he walked with his shoulders hunched, like he was afraid he’d hit his head on something if he straightened his spine. 

On top of that, his face widened somehow, his hair grew, and overnight his hands seemed to become huge. Sometimes Richie would glance down at them and see the long bony fingers on the end of his arms and he’d be sure they belonged to someone else. He felt like someone had reached into a bag of leftover body parts and stitched him together with the gangliest assortment of long limbs and bony corners they could find. He no longer fit on his bike, or on Mike’s lap, or in his bed. His parents bought him a new bike and a bigger mattress, and Mike pushed him onto the floor and said, “Your bony butt is too big for that.” 

With Richie’s sudden growth spurt came shin splints, constant growing pains, and acne. When his voice started to change, he was afraid to speak, which made Eddie think he was sick or dying because Richie was always speaking. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, and sometimes it would break painfully, embarrassingly, and he’d have to sit back in his chair and wait for everyone to stop laughing so that he could finish what he’d been saying. The only person who didn’t make fun of him for any of it was Eddie, which was the next change Richie had noticed. 

He’d always liked Eddie, but in a careful sort of way. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Richie wanted to kiss Eddie, in fact, the only friend in their group who wasn’t aware of this by now was Eddie himself. Even Bev knew. Richie had called her one night and cried it all out, and she’d called him a dumbass and told him to tell Eddie. That was everyone’s advice on the matter, and Richie had started to consider it. He’d allowed himself to imagine a time when Eddie knew how he felt, and maybe he felt the same way, but when Richie’s body started to change, so did the things he wanted. The desire to kiss Eddie didn’t go away, it only got bigger. 

He wanted to tell Eddie, but Richie wanted other things too, things Eddie could never know about. Things he could never imagine Eddie wanting. So Richie repressed it. He wrapped it up tight and shoved it to the back of his mind. It was bad enough he thought about holding Eddie’s hand and kissing his cheek and calling him sweet things, like _ honey _ or _ baby, _ even if only to hear Eddie’s exasperatedly fond _ shut up, Rich, I hate it when you call me that. _

Eddie didn’t need to know were other things Richie wanted Eddie to say, other inflections he wanted to hear in his voice, other places he wanted to kiss, but Richie couldn’t hurt Eddie like that, not even by thinking about it. His imagination was wild, fast and unpredictable, and sometimes he would dream, and he’d wake up sweaty and crying and hating himself, but he couldn’t control what he dreamt about. He could only control what he thought about, and he could control how he behaved around Eddie. When he was thirteen, it was easier to pass it off as roughhousing, after all, what’s a little teasing among friends? But now that he was older, he was afraid it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to himself. He started avoiding Eddie, touching him less, teasing him less, and it hurt, but at least he wasn’t putting Eddie in danger.

It was easier at school. Their class schedules didn’t always line up, and it was easier to be friendly in the halls and for a few hours after school than it was to pretend everything was fine for hours on end, and if Richie spent most of his English class thinking about the way Eddie’s hair curled at the nape of his neck, that was nobody’s business but his own. But it was summer again, and he couldn’t hide behind textbooks or lockers or doors. Richie could only stand in the sunshine and stare at Eddie and hope that Eddie wouldn’t hate him for it. 

Sometimes, Eddie caught Richie staring. More often than not, he would make a face or stick out his tongue, and Richie would return it, exaggerated and playful. But other times, Eddie stared back. Richie could feel a blush rising in his face as Eddie held his gaze, level and calm, not curious or judgmental, simply looking. When that happened, Richie would always be the one to look away. He’d quickly turn to another one of their friends and crack a joke, which would make everyone groan or laugh or tell him to shut up, and it would take his mind off Eddie and the way his face got pink when he was outside for too long. 

The week school let out, the losers split up. Bev was still with her aunt, and wouldn’t be back in Derry any time soon. Ben went to a fancy summer camp for architects. Bill went to his family’s house at the lake. Stan went to his grandmother’s. Mike went to Florida. It was just Richie and Eddie. Richie had expected it to be awkward since he’d spent most of the school year artfully dancing around Eddie and coming up with excuses to avoid hanging out with him alone. He knew Eddie had noticed, and he assumed Eddie would ignore him back, and they’d reunite with the group next month and act like everything was fine. So when Eddie showed up at his house fourteen days into summer vacation looking sweaty and stubborn, Richie was so shocked he could only step aside and let him in. 

“You’ve been ignoring me,” Eddie snapped. 

He was standing in Richie’s front hall, his arms folded over his chest and his eyebrows knit together. It had been several months since he’d been over to Richie’s house, and Richie had missed him; in fact, the sight of Eddie in his house was enough to shock the sense of humor right out of him.

“What?” Richie said.

“You’ve been brushing me off all year, and I thought it was ‘cus your parents were all over you about your grades,” Eddie’s voice was furious, and he was speaking fast, a trait he’d started to grow out of and only lapsed into when he was overwhelmed. “But then I hear from Bill about all the stuff you and Stan were doing over the weekends, and I hear from Stan that you got new medication and you were actually doing a lot better, and I hear from Bev that you started calling her once a week this year, and it’s like what the fuck, right? You’re hanging out with everybody but me? What, did you outgrow me, or something? Am I distracting? Do you not like me? But I think fine, since everybody else is gone, you’ll be forced to hang out with me, maybe you’d be so fucking bored you’d have no choice but to pretend we were still friends, and maybe I could get you to tell me what the fuck it is I did to make you treat me like that, but no. You’re still ignoring me. You’d rather be alone in your house with your fucking mother than be with me, but I don’t want to be in my house with my mother, so I’m here now, and I’m staying here, so you can grow the fuck up and deal with it. Can I have a glass of water?” 

Richie opened his mouth, and then closed it. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Of course you can, Eds.” 

“Don’t fucking call me Eds, you know I hate that,” Eddie brushed past Richie and stalked into the kitchen. 

Richie took a deep breath, and then followed him. Eddie was standing in front of the sink, a half drunk glass of water in his hand. He was frowning. 

“What’s wrong? Not as good as the water you’ve got at your house?” Richie hopped up onto the counter. “That’s rich people water, Edward, don’t be a snob.”   
  
“You called me Eds,” Eddie said. He turned to the sink and refilled the glass. 

“Yeah, I know, you hate it, blah blah,” Richie drummed his heels against the cabinets. “You know me. Old dog, new tricks.”

“So you don’t hate me?” when Eddie had arrived, he’d been angry. All bluster and pomp and red face and clenched fists, but now that he was calmer, he looked sad. His voice was small, and he fidgeted slightly. 

“No, Eds, I don’t hate you,” Richie said. “I could never hate you.”  
  
“Then why?” Eddie asked plaintively. 

Richie wasn’t sure how to reply. He could tell him the truth, but that would mean telling him things that Richie wasn’t ready to talk about, yet. But Eddie was in his house, and he looked so dejected that Richie couldn’t hurt his feelings again. 

“You remember when we used to go over to Bill’s, and Georgie would answer the door?”

“Yeah,” Eddie’s face tightened. 

“Remember what he used to say when saw us? He would say, hi Richie and Eddie! But he would say it like it was all one word. RichieandEddie.” 

“Yeah, and one day Bill heard him say it, and he started saying it, and now everybody says it,” Eddie set his glass down on the counter and started toying with the zipper pull on his fanny pack. “Sure I remember.”

“It was because of that.”

“You ignored me because of...Georgie? That was four years ago, Rich.” 

“No, it was because I was scared.” 

“Scared? Of what?” Eddie asked, and Richie knew he could make this easy for himself. He could rip off a joke, like, _ my true feelings for your mother, _and Eddie would be exasperated, but he would know things were okay, and Richie could spare himself the soul baring. 

But instead, he opened his mouth and said, “You.”

“Me?” Eddie asked incredulously. 

“Yeah.”

“What’s so scary about me? What did I ever do? That’s a little unfair, honestly, Richie.” 

“I want to kiss you,” Richie said loudly, desperately, nearly choking on it. His face was hot, like he was burned, or maybe he was burning. 

Eddie’s mouth fell open. “Oh.” 

He didn’t seem all that surprised, but he was very, very still. Richie bit his nails and waited for Eddie to say something.   
  
“So you avoided me because you like me?” Eddie asked. His tone was level, not derisive, not hysterical. Purposefully devoid of inflection. 

“I guess, yeah,” Richie mumbled. 

“Don’t bite your nails, Rich, it’s bad for your teeth,” Eddie said, and he reached out and grabbed Richie’s wrist to pull his hand away from his mouth, the way he always did. When his fingers closed around Richie’s wrist, they both froze. 

Eddie’s eyes were fixed on the point where their skin was touching. Richie couldn’t breathe.

“I think I’m going to go home,” Eddie said. 

“Okay,” Richie bit the inside of his cheek and told himself not to cry. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Eddie dropped Richie’s wrist and took a step back. “Bye, Richie.” 

Richie didn’t respond. He sat on the kitchen counter and waited for the sound of the front door closing behind Eddie. When he heard it, he jumped down off the counter, and went over to the sink. He dumped Eddie’s glass of water down the sink, washed it, and put it away. Then he went upstairs to his room, took off his glasses, and dropped face first onto his bed. With his face sufficiently buried in a pillow, he let himself cry. 

* * *

JULY

* * *

If you asked Eddie what the worst time in his life was, he would not say it was the afternoon a teenager had pinned him to the sidewalk and twisted his arm behind his back so hard it snapped clean in half. It would not be the day he found out his mother had been feeding him placeboes his whole life, or the day his father died, or the four weeks he spent in the hospital when he had a cold that turned into pneumonia, and it would not be the day his best friend’s younger brother disappeared. He would say it was the summer he spent alone. 

In the three weeks since Richie Tozier had said _ I want to kiss you _and then blushed brighter than a newborn with a fever, Eddie had thought about it nearly every single day. Sometimes with disgust, sometimes with shock, but more than anything, he was curious. 

Eddie had never had a girlfriend. He had never even had a crush on a girl. Most of his friends were at the point in their lives where all they could talk about was girls. Bill and Ben pined constantly over Bev, which Eddie thought was stupid, because obviously they couldn’t both have her and she didn’t even live there anymore. Mike had a crush on his English teacher, which would never work out, but he would smile dreamily all through class and Richie would torment him mercilessly.

Stan did not talk about girls, but Eddie knew he looked at them, because when Stan saw something he liked his mouth would become a tight line and his eyebrows would draw together. It was a little creepy, if Eddie was honest, but Stan was so buttoned up, he didn’t think it would be polite to comment on it. And then there was Richie. Richie with his mom jokes and his pussy jokes, and that absolutely disgusting thing he’d started doing where he made a V with his fingers and flicked his tongue between them. It made Eddie’s skin crawl, but it also confused him, because Richie was so aggressive about girls. He was loud and lewd and disgusting, but apparently underneath all of that big talk, what he really wanted was Eddie. The idea made Eddie shiver. 

The concept was terrifying. He knew what it meant for a boy to love another boy. He’d read the newspaper articles about the man who’d been thrown off the bridge, and he’d seen the graffiti on the kissing bridge, and he’d heard what his mother had to say about the _ queers spreading the cancer, _so he’d never really thought it was a good thing. Which, he supposed, was only one aspect of it. Because it must be pretty great, if it was anything like the way his friends talked about girls. He thought about the way Bill went on and on about soft skin and chapstick and long hair and soft voices, and he felt like a voyeur. Like it was Bill’s business and that girl’s business, and Eddie didn’t want to hear about it. 

Sometimes he would walk home from the Y and think about girls on purpose. He would focus his mind on the girls on his track team, with their shorts regulation short and their faces flushed and breath fast. It always made him uncomfortable and ashamed, and his mind would inevitably wander to schoolwork or his college applications, or Richie. He thought about Richie all the time, even more now that Richie had confessed. He’d never thought about Richie the way he tried to make himself think about girls, and he was almost afraid to try. It was like he’d be asking himself a question he wasn’t sure he needed the answer to, so he would instead recount his lap times to himself and not think about Richie’s hands. 

A change happened for Eddie one night when he was sitting in the living room watching TV with his mother, the silence between them nearly unfathomable. They were watching an old movie, something Cary Grant that Eddie had never liked. Cary was tall, much taller than the girl he was playing opposite, and his character in the movie had a quick wit. He quipped, she got annoyed, and then he would scoop her into a kiss. 

Eddie watched with bated breath as her fingernails dug into Cary Grant’s shoulder blades while he kissed her. He watched his muscles move under his shirt, and he felt his pulse pick up. It was easy to imagine himself in that scenario, he’d often imagined he would experience romance the way it happened in a black and white movie, but he’d never pictured himself as the person being kissed. He’d never imagined himself as the girl, and he’d never thought about gripping a man’s arms the way girls were supposed to. But now that he had, he couldn’t stop. 

After that night, Eddie would force himself to not think about Richie. It became routine to walk home from track and scowl at the sidewalk and think about anything but Richie’s big stupid face and long curly hair and always moving mouth. Eddie didn’t ride his bike to track. His legs were always too tired from running to pedal himself home, and the walking served as a good cool down to keep his muscles from cramping. He had to walk past the house on Neibolt, but it was broad daylight and he was usually so engrossed in his thoughts he didn’t even notice. Until the second week of July, when it was impossibly hot, and there was somebody sitting on the porch of Neibolt when Eddie walked home. 

He saw them out of the corner of his eye, a young man in tattered clothes, smoking a cigarette and watching Eddie. Eddie started mentally reciting lap times and walked a little faster. The pills in his fanny pack rattled with every step he took. 

“Hey, pretty boy!”

Eddie felt cold. The last time somebody had called him that, they’d broken his arm. 

“Hey! I’m talking to you!”

He wasn’t sure what to do. He’d been in this situation before and had guessed wrong every time. Stop, and get beaten up? Start running, and get beaten up? Although, Eddie reasoned, he was in track now and could probably run faster than the man, what if he had a gun? Or what if he also used to do track and could run just as fast as Eddie? It wasn’t until the man was standing in front of him that Eddie realized he had stopped walking, and it wasn’t until the man tried to touch him that Eddie realized he was having a panic attack. The man’s hand came toward him, and Eddie leapt backwards. 

“Don’t,” he choked. He unzipped his fanny pack with one hand and pulled out his inhaler. The man watched him quizzically as Eddie shook it, pumped it, and then dropped it back into his fanny pack. 

“You sick?”

“No,” Eddie said. 

The man had light gray eyes and dark hair. He was swaying slightly where he stood, but he didn’t look violent. He just looked tired and dirty. The adrenaline that had flooded Eddie’s system moments prior was abated by the sudden guilt he felt for judging the man before he’d even met him. But then again, anybody who shouted at people on the street couldn’t be all that great. 

Eddie’s thoughts were interrupted by the man asking, “How old are you?” 

Eddie shifted uncomfortably. “Seventeen.”

It was a half truth. He would be seventeen in September. 

“What are you looking for?”

“What? I’m not looking for anything,” Eddie spluttered, and then, “It’s none of your business, anyway.” 

The man considered this, and cocked his head to the side like a dog. “You want a bump?” 

He held out his hand to reveal a plastic bag and a tourniquet. 

“No,” Eddie stumbled backwards, the sidewalk suddenly slippery under his sneakers. “No, thank you.”

“You want a blowjob?”

“What?” Eddie took another step back. “No. I’m just a kid. Why would I want that? No.”

The man laughed. “You forgot your manners, there.”

“Sorry. No, thank you, I do not want a...that. Or a bump. I really should be getting home, my mom will freak out if I’m late.”

“Oh, a mama’s boy. A mama’s boy who turns around when somebody calls him _ pretty boy. _ A pretty mama’s boy who can’t even say the word _ blowjob. _Jesus, pick a struggle, kid.” 

“Fuck you, man,” Eddie said. He stepped off the sidewalk and into the street. The man didn’t attempt to stop him as he walked in a large circle around him, and then got back on the sidewalk at the end of the block. 

“If you ever want a blowjob, you know where to find me!” the man shouted, and at that, Eddie started running. 

He knew the man wasn’t pursuing him, but it felt like he was being followed. Something had crawled out of a crack in the sidewalk and was now lurking behind every telephone pole, watching Eddie with wide, all-knowing eyes, waiting for him to trip and fall so that it could catch him and force him to reckon with everything he’d spent the whole summer running from. It wasn’t until his chest started to burn that Eddie realized he was not running to his house. He was running to Richie’s. 

There was no car in the driveway when he arrived, but he knew Richie’s bedroom window would be open. In an adrenaline fueled moment of idiotic bravery, Eddie climbed the trellis on the side of the house and heaved himself into Richie’s room. Richie was not there, and Eddie was slightly grateful for that. 

Eddie sank to the floor and tried to catch his breath. It had been a while since he’d had a panic attack that bad, and a long time since he’d felt fear like that. When he’d stopped shaking, he unzipped his fanny pack and pulled out the only prescription he kept up with, the real, legitimate one for his anxiety medication. He wasn’t supposed to take a dose for another hour, but he figured it didn’t matter just once. His heart wasn’t slowing down, and he didn’t want to be scared anymore, so he took his pills and closed his eyes. 

With his eyes closed, he sat back and thought about leaves. Dark forest green leaves. Dry and rustling in the wind, damp and gummy to the touch, branches full of them snapping back into your face and showering you with dewdrops, collected on the forest floor and slightly brown at the edges, like they’d fallen before their time. Miles of green, like farmland, the way he imagined a forest would look if you were to see it from above. Rolling and vibrant, like it would be soft and cool to the touch. 

Greens and suddenly, browns, like tree bark, dead leaves, sand, and Richie’s eyes behind his glasses. The freckles on the bridge of his nose, splattered and clustered like someone had taken a paintbrush and flicked him in the face with a diluted, washed out brown, in sharp contrast to the warm, deep brown of his eyes. Not like a few weeks ago when he had been red, bright and hot to the touch, his eyes black and panicked. Brown like a bruise when it was done fading, past purple and blue and yellow, to a slight brown-ish reddish mark that no longer hurt when you poked it, but still indicated something was happening beneath your skin. You weren’t quite healed yet, see? 

Eddie sat there for a long time. He pressed his backbone against the paneling on the wall and breathed deeply through his nose. His arm ached, like it always did when he was stressed, and absently he reached out with his hand to stroke the scar. The first week after he’d gotten his cast off, the scar had bothered him immeasurably. He’d sit and rub at the scar, and in the shower he would scrub it furiously, hatefully, like if he went at it hard enough it would come off and it would be like none of it had ever happened. He’d eventually accepted the scar as part of his body, but the ache still came and went, with the weather or his mood or his nightmares. There was a place where it throbbed, and Eddie knew without seeing the x-rays that it was the point where his bone had actually split. 

Eddie ran his hand along it gently, and the pads of his fingers skimmed over the slight white line where they’d surgically corrected the fracture. His fingertips were gentle on his skin. He closed his eyes and thought about bruises and trees and Richie, and he waited for Richie to come home. 

* * *

AUGUST 

* * *

Richie spent most of his adolescence climbing into Eddie’s bedroom window. If sneaking into houses was on Olympic sport, Richie would be recruited to represent his country. Eddie had only climbed into Richie’s window once, and when Richie had come home and found Eddie sitting on his bedroom floor with his medication in his hand and a bruise on his knee, he was sure he was dreaming. They hadn’t spoken in three weeks, and Richie had been convinced he’d never see Eddie again, but Eddie had jumped to his feet and thrown himself into Richie’s arms and everything had been okay. They didn’t talk about Richie’s feelings, and they didn’t talk about why Eddie had come to his house, and it was fine. School would start soon, and they could be friends again, and Richie could forget about it, or at least pretend to think about his homework and not the fact Eddie probably hated him a little bit. 

In the last few weeks before school started, they hung out less as a group and more as units. Richie had started smoking again, which meant he saw Stan every day, even though putting up with the judgmental scowling every time he came over to light up was a little bit annoying. Ben and Mike hung out almost every day, and Richie could see them through the library window when he biked past, heads pressed together over a book while the elderly librarians eyed them suspiciously. Bill retreated into his house to catch up on his summer reading. And, of course, Richie and Eddie spent most afternoons together. 

There was never a definitive plan for their afternoons. They simply met on the street outside Eddie’s house, and then started biking. Eventually they’d arrive somewhere, the movie theater, the park, Bill’s house, somewhere new every day. Richie thought they did a pretty good job at keeping things exciting by never visiting the same place twice in a row and leaving the second they got bored, so he was surprised when Eddie brought up that they’d never been to the kissing bridge. Richie had been to the bridge plenty of times, he’d just never been there with Eddie, which was how he found himself cycling to the kissing bridge in 90 degree heat on a Wednesday in the last week of summer. 

When they arrived, he stayed atop his bike while Eddie dismounted. He dropped his bike to the ground and stared at Richie expectantly. 

“Well, you’ve seen it, we’ve been, better get going, I can still make my date with your mother if we get home now.”

Eddie ignored him. Richie pulled himself up and prepared to pedal away. 

“Wait,” Eddie said, and Richie paused. 

Eddie was pointing at something, and Richie did not need to follow his hand to know what it was. 

“Did you do that?” 

Richie jumped off his bike. He lowered the kick-stand and went to stand next to Eddie. He was still pointing at the fence slat where Richie had carved their initials. 

“Yeah, I did,” he said. 

Eddie was quiet for a long time. “When?” 

“Like, three years ago,” Richie suddenly wished he’d stayed on his bike. If Eddie flipped out, he needed to be able to beat a hasty retreat. He was so wrapped up in planning exit strategies, he didn’t notice that Eddie had moved into his space and was staring at him intently. “What? I can’t erase it, I used a knife.” 

Eddie scowled, but then he leaned in, his lips slightly parted, and Richie jerked back. He exhaled once, short, sharp, like it had been punched out of him. Then he laughed uneasily, ready to make a joke, but he paused when he saw confusion on Eddie’s face.

“Do you not want to kiss me?” Eddie asked him.

“What? Why would I want that?” Richie’s voice climbed high in his chest. “Just because I’m in love with you?” 

“Are you kidding with me? Now is really not the time to make jokes,” Eddie muttered. He looked embarrassed and confused, and Richie didn’t understand. 

“Do you want to kiss me?” Richie managed, his voice nearly a squeak.

“Of course,” Eddie’s frown deepened. “I wouldn’t have tried to if I didn’t want to.”

“Oh,” Richie said. “Okay.”

“So, do you want to kiss me?”

“Yeah,” Richie said, too quickly, but it made Eddie smile. 

“Okay,” Eddie said.

Richie laughed again, nervous as a cat. 

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Kiss me, Richie.” 

The tension in Richie’s stomach unspooled, and it was replaced by something that felt warm and heavy, like burning hot copper wire was slowly winding its way up his ribcage. He leaned in, met Eddie in the middle, and kissed him. 

It was awkward, no more than a bump of lips, like they knew what a kiss should be but weren’t sure how to do it properly. Nevertheless, Richie pulled back and smiled at Eddie. Eddie pressed his thumb into Richie’s chin and smiled back. 

“Holy shit,” Richie said. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed with a light laugh. 

“I guess we should talk about this.”

“I guess.”

Richie sat down where he stood, which was right in the middle of the road. 

“Oh, c’mon, Rich,” Eddie said, and he was laughing, “What if a car comes by?”

“Then the Lord Jesus will have clearly decided it is my time, and who am I to argue with His supreme judgement?” Richie had been working on his Southern preacher voice, but it still sounded a lot more like Foghorn Leghorn than anything else. “May a car strike me, I say, if that is His wish.” 

“You’re Jewish, you absolute moron, now shut up about Jesus and get out of the road.” 

“Why Eds,” Richie said in a falsetto belle voice, with a delicate hand pressed to his chest in mock offense. “What would your dear mother say if she heard such a thing come out of your Protestant mouth? Good heavens, I have corrupted her dear boy with my Judaism. Shut up about Jesus, indeed. Did not Pontius Pilate say the exact same thing before he washed his hands of the Savior?” 

The more Richie talked, the more Eddie laughed, and Richie couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. He hadn’t heard Eddie laugh like that in months, since last summer, before the start of their last school year, when he’d laughed so hard he’d gotten hiccups and Richie had known in that moment he was truly and supremely fucked. 

Eddie pulled them off the road and onto the grass next to the fence. It was a peaceful road, rarely any traffic, and Richie knew they would be safe here. He settled into the slightly damp earth and turned to face Eddie. 

“So, do you want to go first?” Richie offered. “Since I technically went first last month when I opened my big mouth and threw up love all over you.”  
  
“You didn’t say love last month,” Eddie corrected gently. “You said you wanted to kiss me. You didn’t say love until a minute ago.”

“My secret is out,” Richie pressed the back of his hand against his forehead and fell backwards into the grass. 

“Richie, sit up, be serious,” Eddie reached out and rested a gentle hand on Richie’s knee. “I need you for a minute.”  
  
“Okay, okay,” Richie sat up. “All yours, Eds.” 

“I have some stuff I have to tell you, first.”

Richie leaned forward and cupped his hands around his ears. “I am all ears. I’m like a cornfield. I’m like a sewing circle. I am like…”

“Please, be quiet.” 

“Okay.” 

“I still have dreams,” Eddie said, “well, nightmares, really.”

“About your mom?”

“Yeah. And blood. And needles. Dirty needles. They’re everywhere, and there’s blood on the floor, and in bags, and it’s dirty.”

“You watch too much Geraldo,” Richie quipped, and Eddie smiled, like he knew Richie was right, but he wasn’t going to argue the finer points. 

“Y’know the house on Neibolt? The junkies who sleep there? One of them offered me a needle a few weeks ago. I said no, but he followed me,” Eddie cleared his throat. “He asked me if I wanted a blowjob.”

“Holy shit, Eds. Was that the day you came to my house?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, his voice small and watery. “I can’t stop dreaming about it. I see it all the time. Disease, and blood, and fucking,” Eddie covered his face with his hands. “Men. Men asking me for stuff, offering me stuff. Every time I close my eyes.”

“Eds,” Richie reached out.

“I don’t want you to feel bad,” Eddie mumbled. “I’m just telling you there’s stuff I might not be able to do. Stuff I can’t give you.”

“I don’t expect anything.”

“Sometimes, in my dreams, I see the guy who followed me. He’s trying to kiss me, and I can feel that he’s sick, and he’s trying to shove his tongue down my throat.” 

“You can’t get AIDs from kissing,” Richie said suddenly. “I mean, you didn’t specifically mention AIDs. But I know you worry about that.” 

Eddie scoffed. “What?”

“You can’t get AIDs from kissing,” Richie repeated, and he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Just from blood and semen. And breast milk. And...like...vagina stuff.” 

“Vomit?” 

“No.”

“Oh,” Eddie’s body sagged in relief. “In the...in the dream. He throws up on me. It’s everywhere.”

“There’s no AIDs in vomit.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

Richie shrugged, his nonchalance stiff and forced. “I’m gay, and I don’t want to die. I have to know this stuff. They have a pamphlet at the YMCA.” 

It was quiet for a moment. Richie had never said the word gay out loud before, which he didn’t want to talk about, and neither of them wanted to talk about the fact they were in danger. It was almost stupid, if they were really in love. Eddie’s arm still ached sometimes and Richie still couldn’t go to the arcade alone, but they were somehow the lucky ones. They were alive, but it was up to them to keep themselves that way. Richie had considered his parents, and Eddie’s mom, and AIDs, and his rabbi, and his friends, he’d considered it until he felt sick, the way his orientation would impact him, but he hadn’t considered Eddie. Mostly because he’d been afraid to consider Eddie. 

“Eds, y’know, you don’t owe me this,” Richie said softly. “Just ‘cus I want to kiss you doesn’t mean, like, I’m gonna die without it. I want you to be happy, alright? Happy and safe. And it’s okay. Just let me down easy, yeah?” 

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie murmured, and it sounded like he was about to cry. “Can you get me one of those pamphlets from the Y?” 

Richie did not say _ but you go to the Y more than I do _ and he didn’t say _ you can have mine. _Instead he said, “Sure thing, Eds,” and then, because he did not want Eddie to cry, “So, while we’re on the topic, the things we can’t do,” Richie counted off on his fingers, “No tongue kissing, no sharing needles, no breastfeeding…”

“Come on,” Eddie groaned. “This is serious.”

“I know,” Richie said. 

“It’s scary, Rich,” Eddie murmured. “People are dying.”

Richie reached over and grabbed Eddie’s hand. He brought Eddie’s knuckles up to his mouth and kissed them, once. 

“You’re not going to die, Eds,” he kissed Eddie’s thumb, “Not from this. It’s going to be okay.”

“‘Cus I do want you,” Eddie said, as if Richie hadn’t spoken, and his voice was impossibly quiet. “I do. So much that I can’t let myself think about it, or I can’t breathe.”

“Like, the thought of me gives you asthma? Sexy.” 

“Richie.” 

“Alright, alright,” Richie squeezed Eddie’s hands and idly traced the points between the freckles on Eddie’s knuckles. “You have freckles.”

“Yeah, so do you.”

Richie looked up at Eddie. “Can I try something?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie consented, but he looked wary.

“You can stop me anytime.”

“No tongue,” Eddie warned, but Richie got the feeling Eddie wouldn’t be opposed to a little tongue. Not today, but maybe in the future. 

“Yeah, I remember the rules,” Richie said, grinning hugely at the thought of a future. A future that involved kissing Eddie. 

Eddie had freckles on his lips. Four, to be precise. Richie leaned in slowly, and kissed the one that sat on the thin skin between his lip and his chin. Suddenly, everything narrowed down to that point. He could feel grass tickling his ankles through his jeans, and he could feel the sun beating down on his shoulders, and he could feel the way Eddie exhaled in surprise against Richie's mouth. 

“What are you doing?” Eddie asked, his voice soft and intimate. 

“I’m kissing your freckles,” Richie explained, and he kissed the one on Eddie’s top lip.

“You’re just kissing my mouth over and over again,” Eddie said, but it didn’t sound like he minded.  
  
“You have plenty of freckles other places, just be patient,” Richie teased.

“Okay, no, get off,” Eddie pushed at Richie’s shoulders. “We aren’t doing this on the ground in public.” 

He stood up and dashed over to his bike. Richie’s head was still spinning when Eddie biked away shouting, “I’ll meet you at your house!” 

Richie forced down a jubilant shout and mounted his own bike. Of all the ways he had thought that summer might end, he hadn’t expected this, but he couldn’t say he minded. It was a short ride back to his house from the bridge, and his heart thrummed in his ear the whole way home.


	3. SUMMER 1995

> _"You flicker. I cannot touch you.  
_ _I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns." _
> 
> _ \- Sylvia Plath _

* * *

JUNE

* * *

Richie knew all of his friends would grow up. He also knew growing up meant leaving Derry. For most people, anyway. Richie hadn’t left yet. He’d graduated high school and turned nineteen, and bought a car, and watched almost all of his friends leave. Mike stayed, because he was set to inherit the farm and he wasn’t allowed to leave, and Eddie stayed because he caught mono in his senior year, missed four months of school, and had to take summer school to graduate. He was leaving in August. Richie was not. 

Richie couldn’t pretend it didn’t terrify him. Eddie had an acceptance letter to NYU with his name on it. Mike had a will and a deed to property with his name on it. Richie still had little rocket ships on his bed sheets. 

They didn’t talk about it, which was probably Richie’s own fault, because every time Eddie’s departure was mentioned, he’d get snappy. Eddie seemed confused and upset by his behavior, and Mike would scowl in a disappointed fashion, which Richie was used to. He just couldn’t make himself talk about it. They were all together for the summer, and Richie was not going to spend it thinking about how Eddie was leaving, and they might never be all together again. For the time being, they were all nineteen, and Beverly had come to Maine for a week, and it was better if they didn’t talk about it. 

Stan’s back porch became a sort of solace that summer, because Stan’s parents were cordial, and didn’t care enough about him to ask him personal questions about his future or his bad attitude. Stan didn’t like to be around cigarettes anymore because of the bronchitis he’d caught last summer, and none of his other friends had ever dared encroach upon Richie’s veranda domain. 

Until Beverly. 

Richie missed Beverly, probably more than he missed any of the others, except Stan. Stan he missed like a brother, but they spoke on the phone nearly every day, and besides, he hadn’t seen Beverly in two years, so it was a little different. Which was probably why he’d allowed her to join him on the veranda a few times a week. She didn’t ask questions, and they smoked different brands, so all he needed to share was his lighter. 

In the last week of June, Richie and Eddie had a fight about Eddie leaving, again, and Richie retreated to Stan’s porch. Stan’s front porch, that is. The Uris’ had put up a new fence in the last year, one that Richie could not climb, so now he had to ring the doorbell and be invited in like it was the eighteen-hundreds and he was coming to call. 

Stan answered the door, his hair still wet from the shower, and frowned at Richie. “I thought you were with Eddie.”

“Well I was, but we are balls deep in contention right now, man,” Richie said.

“You’re...what?” 

“We’re having a disagreement.”

“Why couldn’t you just say that?”

“Sounds cooler my way,” Richie shrugged. 

“Whatever,” Stan said. He opened the door and let Richie in. “If you kill another cactus by putting your cigarettes out in it, you’re buying my mom a new one.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie replied, and if he shut the back door a little more forcefully than necessary, it was just for the satisfaction of knowing he’d made Stan roll his eyes. 

Richie parked himself into his usual seat and lit a cigarette. He kept his pack rolled up in the sleeve of his t-shirt because he’d seen River Phoenix do it in a movie, and he thought it was cool. Eddie also thought it was cool, and had said,  _ “It’s a shame you have to smoke to have those ‘cus that really is cool. Very Greaser.”  _

With a sigh, Richie leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He hated fighting with Eddie, but he hated the thought of losing him more. Living in denial couldn’t be healthy, but spending every minute they had together talking about it hardly seemed wiser. 

He’d been on the porch for less than an hour and hadn’t come up with any brilliant solutions to the problem when Beverly showed up, her cigarettes in hand and a knowing smirk on her face. She settled herself onto the chair opposite his and looked at him. 

“You’re being a little bitch,” Bev said. She twirled an unlit cigarette between her fingers and waited while Richie lit a new one. 

“You will be expelled from the veranda if you make me think about my life,” Richie told her succinctly. He passed her the lighter. 

“Oh, don’t be that way,” she lit her cigarette and leaned back in her chair. “Sure, leaving is scary, but it’s a good thing. Change isn’t that bad once you get used to it.”

“No offense Beverly, but you left Maine for two years and you came back a Camel smoker.”. 

Beverly rolled her eyes at the obvious subject change. “Come on, Richie. You’re freaking Eddie out.”

“I’m freaking Eddie out,” Richie snorted in disbelief. “Okay.”

“See, there it is,” she exclaimed. “You’re being so bitchy! Anyone would think you’d be glad to get out of this place.” 

“Yeah, I would, but I’m not,” Richie said flatly, “and if you can’t stop talking about it, go smoke somewhere else.”

“Don’t be rude,” Bev reached out and pinched his knee. “What’s wrong with Camels, anyway?”

“Why nothing, Ms. Marsh,” Richie drawled. He exhaled luxuriously. “You are just in the presence of a born and bred Marlboro man.”

“Your dad smokes Camels,” Eddie’s voice suddenly came from behind them. 

Richie choked on a lungful of smoke and slid out of his chair. Eddie watched in bemusement as he crumpled to the ground. Beverly immediately extinguished her cigarette, and then reached down and took Richie’s from him to do the same. 

“Hey, Eddie,” Beverly said. “Where’d you come from?”

“Mrs. Uris let me in,” Eddie replied. “Thanks for putting those out.”

“Sure,” Beverly said cautiously.

Richie continued to cough. 

“Oh come on, are you Oscar bidding with this coughing bullshit?” Eddie rolled his eyes and nudged Richie with his sneaker. “Get up, kiss me hello.”

“Can’t,” Richie wheezed. “I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying, Rich,” Eddie said calmly. 

Richie stopped coughing and pulled in a deep breath. He lay on his back on the porch and looked up at Eddie for a moment. “You really want a kiss?” 

“Yeah, Rich,” Eddie’s voice was soft, which surprised both Richie and Beverly. The last time they’d talked, Richie had called him uptight, and Eddie had called him inconsiderate. Both things were true, but it’s generally considered rude to bring things like that up in an argument. 

“I’m gonna go see if I can get Mrs. Uris to make me a sandwich,” Beverly said. She cast a glance between the two of them, and made a pointed face at Richie before she turned to go. 

“Deserter,” Richie called after her. 

Beverly flipped him off, and closed the porch door behind herself. 

“Since when does Beverly have veranda privileges?” Eddie held out his hand to help Richie up off the ground.

“Since I missed her,” Richie took Eddie’s hand and pulled himself up. “I probably taste like cigarettes.”

“You always taste like cigarettes,” Eddie said. “You smoke.”

“Okay,” Richie leaned in and pressed a kiss to Eddie’s mouth. “Why are you here?”

Eddie’s eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “I don’t like it when we fight.”

“Me either,” Richie replied. 

“We keep fighting about the same thing,” Eddie said. “I feel like we’re not communicating.”

“Yelling is a form of communication.” 

“Don’t be a dick,” Eddie nudged him. “I just don’t understand why you won’t think about August.” 

Richie exhaled slowly, shakily. “I think about it a lot.” 

“But you won’t talk about it,” Eddie took a step away from Richie and fixed him with a quizzical look. 

“That’s different from thinking. I think about it all the time,” Richie sat back down in his chair. He wished he still had a cigarette. “Sometimes I feel like it’s all I do, y’know? I think about you all the time. Like, if you could read my mind you would just see yourself leaving.” 

Eddie looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything. 

“I dunno what I’m gonna do when you go, Eds,” Richie covered his eyes with his hands and willed himself not to cry. “I’m not looking forward to missing you.”

“You don’t want to come with me?” Eddie’s voice wavered slightly. 

Richie looked over at Eddie. “What?” 

“I thought, I don’t know, I guess I was wrong,” Eddie blinked back tears. “I thought you would come with me.”

“Why would you think that?” Richie said, and it must have come out more flippantly than he meant it, because Eddie drew back, into himself and away from Richie. 

“God,” Eddie choked. “You’re a dick sometimes. I’m an idiot, that’s right, why the fuck would you want to follow me around like a dog? Why would anyone? My mom was right. My bad, you’re right, I should just go now, and then we don’t have to spend this entire summer pretending we’re gonna make this work.” 

“No, what the fuck, you can’t leave now. What the fuck are you talking about?” Richie asked sharply. “Like, what the fuck was that? You’re breaking up with me?”

“I’m breaking up with you?” Eddie squeaked, but his inflection was all wrong, and Richie felt more confused than before. 

“That’s what I’m asking,” Richie said helplessly. “I don’t understand.” 

“What’s not to understand?” Eddie’s temper mounted, and his hands clenched into fists. 

“All of it?” Richie’s voice rose slightly in retaliation. “Why would I come with you when you never asked me to? Like, am I just supposed to invite myself? Did you expect me to hide in one of your suitcases? I’m not gonna drag you down, Eds, if you want to go, then fucking go, alright? I know you hate it here, and I know you can’t wait to get the fuck away from this place and everything that reminds you of it, and I’m not gonna hang around like a bad penny. I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna be the one thing you can’t get rid of. You’re leaving, and you deserve to. It’s fine. But you can’t say that I don’t care about you, you can’t just fucking,” Richie’s voice broke, and he felt pathetic, raw, like an exposed nerve. He took a deep breath and reeled himself in. “Sorry.” 

Eddie didn’t say anything for a long time. When Richie finally looked up at him, his eyes were wide and there were tears rolling down his cheeks. 

“We are so fucking bad at this,” Eddie whispered. “Jesus Christ.” 

Richie laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I guess we are.” 

“I always planned for you to come with me, Rich,” Eddie said softly. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you. You’re right that I can’t wait to get out of here, but why would I leave you? Why would I make you stay? I have to stay in the dorm my freshman year but Bev has an extra bedroom in her apartment, and I thought you’d already talked about it. I thought you knew this whole time, but the way you were acting, I thought you didn’t want to come. I thought I’d offended you by assuming you’d just follow me around, but I would never leave you behind, Richie, I love you.” 

“You,” Richie bit his lip so hard he saw stars. “What?” 

“I love you,” Eddie crouched in front of him and rested his hands on Richie’s knees. “Richie, look at me, come on.” 

Richie dug his thumbs into his eyes and swallowed a sob. “You can’t just say that.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said, but it sounded like he didn’t know what he was sorry for, he just really wanted Richie to stop crying. 

“When you told me you were leaving I started having this dream,” Richie said. His eyes were still shut, and Eddie’s hands were warm, so warm Richie could feel the heat from his skin through the denim of his jeans, “I dream that I’m standing in the middle of the road, and you’re coming towards me in a car, and I know that you’re leaving,” Richie paused, “You drive past and you don’t even look at me. You just stare straight ahead and keep going, like I’m not even there. You don’t even see me. That’s how it feels, to watch everybody leave. Like I’m standing in the middle of the road and everyone I love has driven past me and seen me standing there and not even rolled down the window to say goodbye. And it’s okay, it happens, I get it, I’m adjusted, and I can still talk to them on the phone or whatever. But you,” Richie choked on another sob, “I watch you leave and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, because I know that you don’t even miss me. Somehow I just know you’ve already forgotten about me.” 

“Rich,” Eddie exhaled. “Look at me.” 

“Do I have to?” Richie muttered. 

“Yeah, just for a second,” Eddie said. 

Richie dug his thumbs into his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked down at Eddie. “I hate this.”

“Hate what?” Eddie asked. His face was open, not confused or upset anymore. 

“Talking about,” Richie waved a hand, “things.”

“Yeah, it sucks, but I think we’ll get better at it,” Eddie wobbled slightly, and stood up. “I just need you to know that I love you, okay? You can say whatever, it won’t make me change my mind.” 

“Okay,” Richie said. He held out his hand to Eddie, and pulled him into his lap. “I’m sick of saying things, though, so we’re just gonna sit here for a while.” 

“Sure thing, Rich,” Eddie said. 

A delicate silence settled. Richie’s forehead rested heavily against Eddie’s stomach, and Eddie’s hands traveled restlessly over every part of Richie’s body he could reach; his neck, his shoulders, and his hands, which were gripping his hips so tightly it made Richie’s fingers ache. Eddie didn’t seem to mind. His breathing was slow and even, and Richie’s head moved with the gentle rise and fall of his body. 

After a moment, the back door opened, then closed. 

“All good?” Bev asked. Richie cracked open an eye and glanced at her. She was holding half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

“Yeah,” Richie said, his voice muffled by Eddie’s body. He said something else, which made Eddie laugh, but Bev made a face.

“I can’t understand you when your mouth is full of t-shirt,” she said.

“He asked about the spare room in your apartment,” Eddie clarified. 

“I thought you guys had talked about it,” Bev offered Eddie her sandwich. He declined with a shake of his head. “I haven’t rented it to anyone else ‘cus I thought he was sure.” 

“Oh, he is,” Eddie twirled one of Richie’s curls around his finger and yanked on it lightly. 

“If you keep doing that, we’re going to have a problem, cuteness,” Richie said. 

Eddie gave his hair another tug and laughed when Richie poked him in the ribs. 

“Stop, that tickles, stop!” Eddie leaned back on Richie’s lap and wrapped his arms around his middle to protect himself. 

“Wow,” Bev said flatly, her mouth full of sandwich. “The guys are right. You two are gross.” 

Richie and Eddie laughed. The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon on Stan’s veranda. After a while, Stan came downstairs and joined in, and his presence dissipated the remaining tension. Eddie stayed on Richie’s lap for most of the afternoon, and didn’t even budge an inch when Stan’s mom came outside with a plate of sandwiches for them. Richie put the future aside and let himself enjoy the moment. 

* * *

JULY

* * *

In the weeks since Richie’s future had been decided, he’d become a lot more fun to be around. Everyone had always liked his company, and when they were all together without Richie, his absence was a presence in itself. His constant joking and quipping and nonstop parade of impressions was essential to their dynamic, even if everyone pretended to think he was annoying. When he was grouchy, the entire group was thrown off. It was like nobody knew how to make a joke without Richie being there to respond. But now, things were better. 

Richie was still occasionally seized by debilitating fear of the future, but instead of bottling it up, he would call Eddie’s landline at outlandish hours of the night and cry about it, and Sonia would less than politely tell him to never call again. Despite the shenanigans, Eddie knew Richie was excited to be leaving. Ben had helped him make a resume, and his parents were thrilled he was getting out of the house, so it wasn’t all bad. They still hadn’t told Eddie’s mom that Richie was going to Boston with him, but there were some things that she just didn’t need to know, and Eddie wasn’t willing to ruin the rest of his summer by telling her. 

It was July, and the carnival was in town. Richie loved the carnival, because it meant junk food and a rickety Ferris Wheel and the opportunity to win stuffed animals and various other trinkets that he could bestow upon Eddie. Eddie loved the carnival because Richie loved the carnival, and because for the last four years, he had left the fairgrounds with a stuffed animal of some sort. Richie took it upon himself to name the toys before he gave them to Eddie, and it was a tradition that Eddie had come to look forward to. He was in possession of a duck named Goose, a lamb named Kosher, an alligator named Loafers, and a pig named Not Kosher. This year, Richie seemed determined to win him a teddy bear, and Eddie was sure he had a name already picked out. 

There was just one small problem. Somebody must have warned the vendors beforehand of Richie’s mission, otherwise divine providence was on the side of teddy bears that evening, because nobody seemed to be offering stuffed toys that year. 

“Shucks, that’s too bad, Richie,” Mike teased when they approached yet another stall with nary a bear in sight. 

“Y’know what, Eddie and I are gonna do this one on our own,” Richie said suddenly. “Get me a funnel cake, Stan.”

“Okay,” Stan replied, and he smiled at Eddie as Richie pulled him away from the group and into the crowd. 

“What did you do that for?” Eddie asked as Richie led them between the tents and down into a secluded, sparsely populated walkway. 

They stopped in a narrow corner, between the back of a stand and the corner of a trailer, the sound of the carnival muffled and distant. 

“Wanted you alone. I want to kiss you so bad,” Richie said, and there was a plaintive, nearly hysterical edge to his voice that made Eddie’s breath catch in his chest. 

“We can’t.”

“I know, but I want it,” Richie was visibly agitated, and Eddie was scared somebody would notice him picking at his fingernails and biting his lip hard enough that it went white between his teeth. Richie was telegraphing his desire to the entire carnival, and Eddie was so alight with panic that he barely heard it when Richie said, “I want you.” 

“Later.”

“Eddie,” Richie said. 

“Hey, boys,” a voice said. 

Richie leapt away from Eddie in a nearly comical manner, his hands in the air and his entire body strung with tension. 

“What’s going on over here?” 

Eddie looked over at the intruder. It was a boy, no more than a child, with a baseball cap on backwards and a half finished cotton candy in his hand. There was a mischievous glint to his eye, like he’d been looking for trouble and stumbled upon it, but wasn’t quite sure exactly what he’d found. He had dirty knees and a gap between his two front teeth, and Richie looked absolutely terrified of him. 

“We’re having a private conversation,” Eddie said. 

“Didn’t look too private to me, seeing as we’re in public and all,” the boy replied. He calmly pulled a piece of cotton candy off the cone and shoved it into his mouth. He leveled his gaze on Richie, unnerving and frighteningly cruel for a child of his age. 

“It’s none of your business,” Eddie turned and began to walk away. Richie hesitated slightly, and followed him. They made it out of the corner and back into the throng when the boy called after them again, his voice raised high enough that people turned and looked at him, at all of them, and Eddie felt like the ground was moving beneath his shoes. 

“I’m just sayin’, there’s some stuff you shouldn’t do where other people can see,” the boy continued, as if they hadn’t turned their backs on him. “What would people say if I told ‘em what I saw? You think they’d send me to camp so that I don’t catch the queer? Maybe they’d send you to camp. It’s better to keep you all together, y’know, since what you’ve got is contagious.” 

Eddie saw Richie flinch. “Richie, ignore him.” 

With only a slight hesitation, Richie nodded, and kept walking. The kid kept talking, jeering and shouting, and Eddie knew the word was coming before the kid even said it. But he said it, and Richie clenched Eddie’s hand so tightly that Eddie gasped, and Richie dropped his hand like he’d been burned. He cast a look of horror at Eddie’s hand, then his own, and then over his shoulder at the kid. 

“Fuck off, brat,” Richie said. His voice was taut, acidic, and Eddie hated it. “Did I hurt you?”

It took Eddie a moment to realize the question was directed at him. “No. You just surprised me. That’s my bad arm, I just...wasn’t expecting that.” 

“Expecting what?” Richie asked. His eyes moved rapidly over Eddie’s face, like he was looking for something. “Expecting me to hurt you?” 

“No, Richie, it’s okay,” Eddie reached out for him, with his left hand. They both recognized the mistake, and stared at Eddie’s hand where it hovered, his fingers inches from Richie’s chest. 

Richie stepped back. “I need to go. I’ll be back later. I just need some space.” 

Eddie could have stopped him, but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded, and let Richie go. He watched him disappear into the crowd, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans and his shoulders hunched like he was afraid to take up too much space. It was familiar body language, but it still made Eddie’s chest ache to see him like that, because the Richie that Eddie knew was generally a pretty happy person. He’d been a well adjusted kid, maybe a little high maintenance, but even after that summer with Bowers and the near constant bullying in high school, he’d still been quick to smile and joke. It was his thing. 

But being in Derry was beginning to wear on Richie. 

The older he got, the harder it was to hide, the more impatient his parents got, and the more he felt he was failing himself, somehow. It wasn’t that Eddie didn’t like the person Richie had become, it was just that this new Richie did not smile as often as Eddie knew he would’ve liked to. Leaving was going to be good for both of them, for different reasons. 

Eddie knew where Richie was going, but he didn’t follow him. Instead, he went to Richie’s house and greeted his parents and went to Richie’s room to wait for him. It had become a routine of theirs, to rendezvous in bedrooms. Mostly because Eddie’s mother wouldn’t let Richie in the front door so his only point of entry was the bedroom window, but also because Richie’s house was really nice and Eddie liked being in his bedroom. 

He pulled on one of Richie’s hoodies and curled up on the bed with a book to pass the time. When Richie climbed in the window several hours later, he didn’t look surprised to see Eddie. Richie was holding a stuffed teddy bear in his hands. 

“Hi,” he said softly. 

“Hi,” Eddie had teared up at the sight of the bear, and his voice was thick in his throat. 

“I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Where else would I be?” 

His response seemed to surprise Richie, but Eddie had meant it.

“I don’t know,” Richie finally admitted. He looked tired and sad, weary before his time. “I’m just glad to see you.”

“Are you feeling better?” Eddie tossed his book to the floor and stood up. 

“A little,” Richie fidgeted. 

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“Do we have to?” Richie held the bear out towards Eddie. 

Eddie didn’t move towards Richie. “I think so, yeah.” 

Richie sighed. He pushed his glasses up his nose and ran a hand through his hair, then turned and set the bear down on the dresser. “He just spooked me, that’s all.” 

“You’ve never run away from me before,” Eddie said. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, Rich.” 

“But what if I could?” Richie asked, and his voice wavered terribly. He was crying before either of them realized it, his arms folded over his chest and his eyes red. “What if I am?”

“You’ve never hurt me, and you’re not going to,” Eddie said firmly. He knew what Richie was thinking; it was the same thought Eddie had sometimes when his mom heard something on the news and started talking about the  _ queer cancer  _ like it was somehow acceptable to say  _ queer  _ but the word  _ AIDs  _ was crossing some sort of line. Despite logic and reason telling him it was impossible, Eddie still worried he would make Richie sick, and despite Richie’s aversion to violence and the fact his immediate reaction was to protect Eddie, he worried he’d hurt him. 

“I just don't know what I’d do if people knew,” Richie said. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.” 

Eddie felt stung, but he knew what Richie meant. It was humiliating. To have somebody confront you with their own bigotry and expect you to bow to it, to apologize for simply existing, as if they were right and you had offended them on purpose. Like you were the problem, and not them. Eddie was no stranger to embarrassment or shame, he’d lived most of his life with both, but it never got easier. 

“It’s like I was fourteen again,” Richie continued. “He was chasing me and I knew what he was gonna do.” 

Eddie didn’t need to ask who  _ he  _ was. “Like in the alley?”

“Yeah,” Richie’s voice was a whine, uncharacteristic and heartbreaking. “That fucking ten year old just scared the shit out of me. I’m like, three times his size.” 

“You and I both know you wouldn’t punch a ten year old.”

“I would if he punched me first.”

“You wouldn’t punch Bill. You wouldn’t even punch Bowers. They both punched you first.”

“Bowers was bigger than me, and you loved Bill.”

Eddie sighed. “Richie, you didn’t hurt me.”

“I scared you,” Richie stared at a fixed point on the wall in front of him. There was snot on his top lip, which Eddie was dying to comment on, but he refrained. 

“You shocked me,” Eddie corrected. “There’s a difference.” 

Richie shook his head, and Eddie sighed. He stepped forward and reached out to take his hand, but Richie pulled away quickly with a sharp, “No.” 

“No?” Eddie echoed incredulously. 

They stood there, squared off from each other, unsure of how to proceed. 

Eddie knew Richie needed to be touched. They both had their own problems with intimacy, and working through them was slow going, but Richie had always been tactile. Slapping and pushing and pulling hair and throwing a faux casual arm around Eddie’s shoulders had evolved into constant hugs and hand holding and squishing right up against Eddie on the couch even if there was an entire empty sofa to be sat on. He didn’t even realize he did it, most of the time. It was like now that he was allowed to touch Eddie, he couldn’t stop. 

It was an easy thing to accommodate. Eddie liked attention, and he liked Richie, so he couldn’t complain about the fact that Richie's hands were almost always on him, somehow. Richie could sit for hours with Eddie on his lap and his head pillowed on Eddie’s stomach while Eddie played with his hair or read a book or talked about his day. It was unlike Richie to physically draw away, and Eddie hated the innate wrongness of it. Especially since Eddie knew Richie wouldn’t hurt him. He wasn’t capable of it. Even in moments of distress, he’d never been so blinded by adrenaline that he reacted violently, and Eddie had the benefit of being the focus of Richie’s tunnel vision. Richie would rather cut off his hand than hit or hurt Eddie. 

Still, it would’ve been useless to point those things out to Richie. There were parts of Richie that seemed scary to himself, like he had compartmentalized himself so severely that he wasn’t even sure who or what he was. Eddie wasn’t sure what it was in Richie that made him so afraid of himself, but they could worry about it later. At that moment, Richie was on a ledge, and Eddie only knew of one way to get him down. 

“Hey,” Eddie said, and his entire body ached with sympathy. He sat down on the bed and opened his arms. “Come here.”

Richie balked. His eyes were wild and his hands moved constantly, from his glasses to his shirt to his hair to mid-air, useless and shaking and unsure if it was safe to touch even himself. 

“Richie,” Eddie said softly.

There was a sound, then, a strange, aborted sort of noise that might’ve been a wail if Richie hadn’t closed his mouth around it and forced it back into his chest. He blinked a few times, and then took off his glasses. After a moment, Richie tossed his glasses onto the dresser, and crawled onto the bed. Slowly, cautiously, he kneed his way up the mattress and draped his entire body over Eddie’s. He stayed there, still, tense, not entirely resting his weight on him, like he was afraid Eddie would remember that earlier split second of shock and pain, and throw him off.

Eddie didn’t speak to reassure him. He reached up, wrapped his arms around Richie’s head, and pulled Richie’s body down onto his own. Richie collapsed like his strings had been cut, and he grabbed at Eddie’s shirt. His knuckles were white, and the tips of his fingers dug slightly into the skin of Eddie’s torso. After another long, awful moment, he began to cry. 

As if of their own accord, Eddie’s hands began to move. One carded through Richie’s hair and the other lightly stroked the line of Richie’s rib cage. He didn’t talk, or shush, he just let Richie pull on his t-shirt and cry into his chest. 

After a long time, Richie seemed to come back to himself. He stopped crying, and his breathing evened out. The tension that had been strung through his body dissipated, and he relaxed enough that the entire weight of his body rested on Eddie. 

“I trust you,” Eddie said softly, careful not to disturb him. “You believe me?”

Richie nodded without lifting his head. Eddie’s t-shirt rode up and down with the movement. 

“I got snot on your shirt,” Richie mumbled. 

“That’s okay,” Eddie told him. “I’ll change. Not a big deal.” 

“It’s really gross, though,” Richie pulled back slightly and looked down at Eddie’s shirt. “Like, gross even to me.” 

Eddie grinned. “Do you want me to change so that you won’t be lying on snot? Is that it?” 

Richie nodded unashamedly, and pushed himself back onto his knees so that Eddie could climb off the bed. 

His shirt was pretty disgusting. Eddie swallowed against his gag reflex and went into the bathroom. He took off his shirt and balled it up without looking at it, wet a washcloth and scrubbed at the slightly damp spot on his stomach, and pulled on the hoodie Richie had left hanging on the back of the door. Then, he waited. He counted to one hundred, then went back into the bedroom. 

Richie was lying on his back on the bed. His face was red, and his countenance was bleak. He looked drained. 

“How do you feel?” Eddie asked. 

“Tired,” Richie said. His voice sounded rusty. 

“Better, though?” Eddie sat cross legged on the bed next to him. 

“Yeah,” Richie immediately curled his body around the shape of Eddie’s, his knees tucked up against Eddie’s folded shins and his head on the pillow at Eddie’s hip. 

Eddie reached out automatically and stroked the skin of Richie’s neck, just under his ear. Slow, circular motions. He waited for Richie’s breathing to even out, and gradually the tension strung through his body bled away. 

“It’s hard,” Richie murmured. 

“I know,” Eddie said, and he stopped himself from saying  _ baby _ . It probably would not have been helpful. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” Richie asked dryly, and Eddie relaxed at the humor edging his tone. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said firmly.

Richie hummed in response. 

Eddie reached over and nudged at his shoulder until he picked up on the cue and rolled over. He fitted his body to Richie’s back and wrapped an arm tightly around his waist. 

“Go to sleep,” he instructed gently, his forehead pressed to the space between Richie’s shoulder blades. 

“Okay,” Richie whispered. 

“Hey, Rich,” Eddie said suddenly. 

“Yeah?”  
  
“What’s the bear’s name?” 

Richie laughed softly. “His name’s Twinkie.” 

* * *

AUGUST 

* * *

The day they were scheduled to leave Derry, it rained. Clouds filled the sky and rain came down in torrential sheets. Richie knew Eddie hated rain, because the moisture in the air made his arm hurt, and because it interfered with his plans. 

“It’s okay, cute stuff,” Richie soothed. He was holding Eddie’s arm in his hand and massaging it gently, his thumbs digging gently into the place where it ached. “We’ll just leave tomorrow. What’s twenty more hours?”

“It’s twenty more hours,” Eddie said flatly.

Richie laughed. “It’s been nearly twenty years, though, so I don’t see what twenty more hours is gonna do. I’m trapped here, if it’s any consolation. I doubt even your mother would make me bike home in this.”   
“I don’t know, she really fucking hates you, so she might.” 

“Ah, she’s just bitter I traded her in for the younger model,” Richie dropped a kiss to the skin under Eddie’s ear and quietly delighted in the smile it earned him. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie said automatically, but he was still smiling. “Why the fuck is it raining in August, anyway?”

“Eddie, baby, you know I love it when you get moody, but if you don’t stop saying fuck we’re gonna have a serious problem on our hands. And in my pants.”

“You’re gross, get off me,” Eddie pushed at him, and Richie stood up. “Actually, no, come back, my arm hurts.” 

Richie dropped back onto the bed dramatically. “Your mom’s not even home, anyway.”

“What?”

“Her car’s not outside.” 

“Then why did you climb in the window?”

“It’s tradition,” Richie explained with a shrug. “One last time for good measure, I guess.”

Eddie paused at that. “Last time.”

The gravity of the statement hit Richie then, and he sobered. They were supposed to be leaving that day, and if things went according to plan, Eddie would never come back to his mother’s house. His room was nearly empty, except for the few things that his mother had insisted he leave. Eddie’s bed was made with pink sheets from the linen closet instead of his usual yellow stripes, and his posters and photos were packed away. It was strange and exciting to see the walls of his room bare. They were really getting out, but it had to stop raining, first. 

“Yeah, last time,” Richie leaned forward and kissed Eddie on the forehead. “Unless you have like a kink or something, in which case I’ll have to figure out how to climb through the window of your dorm.”

“It’s on the sixth floor.”

Richie shrugged again. “I’d make it work.”

Eddie leaned back and looked at him. “I can’t believe you, sometimes.”

“What?” Richie made a face. “What’d I do now?”

“Nothing,” Eddie reached out and rested his hand on top of Richie’s. “I wonder if everyone else’s boyfriend offers to climb in a sixth story window to keep up with tradition.” 

“I’m a traditional sort of guy,” Richie said, the tips of his ears burning at the way Eddie had so casually used the word  _ boyfriend _ . “Us Jewish folk, y’know. Can’t shake it. Got tradition coming out of our ears. They even wrote a musical about it.” 

“I can’t believe you know things about musicals,” Eddie said. His finger was tracing idle patterns on the back of Richie’s hand, and Richie was trying very hard to ignore it, because it made him want to kiss Eddie. 

“I know about the Jewish ones,” Richie said. “There aren’t many, so it’s easy to keep up with. Also gives me something to talk to my aunts about when they visit.” 

“You talk to your Aunts about musicals?”

“Jewish ones, yeah,” Richie said patiently, “They love Barbra Streisand. They also love my impression of her.” 

“That’s cute,” Eddie murmured. 

“I’ll let them know you think so,” Richie told him. “Or you can. If you come to our next Seder.” 

“You’d want me there?”

“Of course,” Richie turned his hand over and laced his fingers through Eddie’s. “You can be our token goyim.” 

“I’d be honored,” Eddie said quietly, but he was strangely subdued. 

“What’s wrong?” Richie asked. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Eddie gripped Richie’s hand a little tighter and pulled himself up. He swung his leg over Richie’s hips and settled onto his lap in one easy, fluid motion. Richie thought he would probably never get tired of the way it felt to have Eddie’s body pressed against him like that. 

“It just makes me happy when you talk about those things.” 

“Like...what? Jewish holidays? That’s weird,” Richie settled his hands on the tops of Eddie’s thighs. “Yom Kippur. Does that get you going? Did that start your engine? I can go home and get my dad’s Siddur and we can just go to town.”

“No, dumbass,” Eddie shoved at Richie’s shoulder lightly and smiled. “When you talk about the future.”

“Oh,” Richie blanched, and then he continued in a voice, “Well, the future’s coming, whether we like it or not. Better start worrying about it while we still can, that’s what I always say.” 

“What was that?”

“An old timey radio announcer but he’s experiencing, like, dread,” Richie said. “Y2K and all that.” 

“It’s good,” Eddie considered a moment. “Keep working on it.” 

Richie grinned. “I knew you secretly liked my impressions, Eds.”

“It’s not a secret,” Eddie shrugged. “You just have a knack for whipping them out at the worst times.”

“You know what else I could whip out,” Richie wiggled his eyebrows lavisciously. 

“Okay, go for it.”

“Wait,” Richie’s face screwed up in confusion. “What?”

Eddie wasn’t sure what. He’d surprised himself with his answer, but despite the fact he was blushing so hard he felt lightheaded, he also felt stupidly courageous and sure. 

“We’ve been dating for like, two years,” Eddie said. 

Richie pushed his glasses up his nose. “Yeah?” 

“I don’t know,” Eddie shifted slightly on Richie’s lap, then decided that was probably a bad idea. “Don’t you think it’s time?”

“It’s not time until we’re both ready for it,” Richie’s words were sensible, but his face was pink and he was looking anywhere but Eddie’s face. 

“We don’t have to do everything all at once, y’know,” Eddie murmured. 

“Yeah, but I don’t think I’m ready for any of it,” Richie ground out. 

“Oh,” Eddie said, and felt ashamed. He hadn’t considered that Richie might not be ready. He’d assumed that he was the one holding them back, with his hang up about fluids and the fact that he was all too mortifyingly aware that someone’s dick would have to go somewhere. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Richie assured him with a little poke to his ribs. “We could play cards or something, instead.” 

“We could play Super Mario.” 

“The Nintendo is at my house.”

“I’m not afraid of a little water,” Eddie said.

“There are germs in rain water, my dearest Spaghetti Head,” Richie teased, and Eddie shoved him. 

By some mutual silent agreement, they started readying themselves to leave. Eddie pulled on a pair of bright yellow rain boots and produced a matching umbrella from his closet.

“Does it have a matching coat?” Richie asked playfully. 

Eddie looked at him strangely. “I got rid of it. After. Y’know.”

Richie shuddered. “Oh. Sorry.”

With a shrug, Eddie opened the umbrella and reached for Richie’s hand. 

“I can’t believe you just opened an umbrella inside,” Richie said. “That’s like, eighty years of bad luck.”

“None of that shit’s real, Rich,” Eddie led them out of the house and onto the front porch. 

The rain was coming down, not quite as hard as it had been earlier, but still hard enough that it struck the pavement forcefully and the street in front of Eddie’s house looked like a low water crossing. 

“Run for it?” Richie asked, his voice raised to be heard above the rain. 

“It’s twelve blocks,” Eddie said flatly.

“You’re telling me our little track star is afraid of twelve blocks?” 

“In rubber boots, yeah!” 

“Fine, I guess we can take it at a jog,” Richie conceded. 

“If you want to use the umbrella, you’re gonna walk,” Eddie said. 

There wasn’t much room for conversation above the rain, and the odd, plasticy sound the rain made when it struck the top of the umbrella, but every so often Eddie’s arm would brush up against Richie’s. Every time, Richie looked over at him, and every time, Eddie was smiling. By the time they arrived on Richie’s front porch, his jeans and shoes were soaked, and his shoulders were damp. 

“Gross,” he commented, and kicked off his shoes by the welcome mat. 

The driveway was empty, and the front door was unlocked, which meant his parents weren’t home. Richie stepped into the dimly lit house, waiting for Eddie to shake the raindrops off his umbrella and slide it shut before he closed the front door. 

When Richie backed Eddie up against the door, the umbrella fell from his hand. Richie pressed a kiss to Eddie’s mouth, then another, then several more, deep and long, enough to make Eddie rise up on his toes and press himself against Richie, seeking his warmth and proximity.

“Rich, baby, your clothes are wet,” Eddie murmured. 

Richie kissed him again. “Don’t care.”

“I care,” Eddie said quietly. “What if you get pneumonia?” 

“Oh, dear,” said a voice. 

“Pneumonia is rather expensive to treat,” said another voice.   
  
Rather than jump away, Richie froze. Eddie followed his cue, and they stayed there, Eddie’s shoulders against the door and his hands in Richie’s hair and Richie’s hands dangerously low on Eddie’s hips. 

Another lamp turned on in the living room, and he knew his parents were sitting on the couch, his dad with a cigarette and his mother with a magazine in her hand and her shoes kicked off. 

Richie shook himself out of his stupor and turned away from Eddie to face them. He couldn’t quite process the fear he was feeling. When he was in third grade, his class had a pet rabbit, and one day, it escaped from its cage. Thirty third graders had chased the animal around the room, and eventually cornered it, but in doing so, they succeeded in scaring it to death. Richie felt like that rabbit, like there were dozens of eight year olds backing him into a corner and his heart was beating fast enough to blow up and start leaking out of his ears. He cleared his throat. Eddie’s knuckles brushed up against the back of his hand. 

He took a deep breath and said, “Mom. Dad.”

“Son,” Wentworth said. 

“The car’s not in the driveway,” Richie said feebly. “I didn’t think you were home.”

“It’s in the garage. It’s raining.”

Richie looked down at his wet clothes. “Yeah, I know.”

There was a horrible, heavy silence. 

“I should go,” Eddie said suddenly. His face was red as a beet, and his hands were shaking slightly. 

Richie reached out for him. “No.”

“You don’t have to leave, Eddie,” Richie’s mom said quietly. 

“Now, Maggie,” Went began, but she quieted him with a look. 

“Are you boys going to change out of your wet clothes?” 

“Me and Eddie are, I mean,” Richie blurted, then paused, then shrugged helplessly. “Together?”

“Are you asking us or telling us?” Went asked solemnly.

“Went, don’t scare him,” Maggie scolded. “Thanks for telling us, Richie. Does he want to stay over for dinner tonight?”

Richie opened his mouth, then closed it again. “That’s it?”

“We already had lunch, otherwise he could stay for that, too,” Maggie teased lightly. “Come on, Richard. Did you think we’d mind?”

“I don’t know what I thought,” Richie swallowed hard, even though the answer was  _ yes  _ and  _ you’re supposed to hate me, because I would  _ and _ if you don’t then I’ve wasted all this time being afraid because it’s impossible for me to believe that someone could love me anyway _ . “You’re not upset? About grandkids? Or, like, what to tell Aunt Ruth? Or, like, AIDs?”

“Do you have AIDs?” Went raised an eyebrow.

“No, dad, I don’t have AIDs,” Richie shot back. His voice was high, nearly hysterical. Eddie reached out and took Richie’s hand. 

“Then why would we be upset about AIDs?”

“I don’t know!”

“Do you...want us to be mad?” 

“Of course not!” 

Eddie squeezed Richie’s hand. Richie had to reel himself in with a few deep breaths. He’d spent so many years building this moment up in his head, and now he had all this anxiety and fear clamouring inside him with nowhere for it to go. 

“Son,” Wentworth said slowly. “We always worry about you. Maybe not about you catching AIDs, sure, but after that incident with the Bowers boy, your mother and I have been more worried than we should be.” 

“What?”

“He tried to kill you, Richard,” Maggie said gently.

“I know, I was there,” Richie snapped. 

“Hey,” Eddie said quietly. He brought his other hand up to hold Richie’s elbow. “It’s okay.”

“We know why,” Went continued. “I watched them interview him. He claimed you’d made a, well, he called it a  _ pass  _ at his cousin. And he did it to protect him.”

All the blood had drained from Richie’s face. “I didn’t, dad, I swear. I wouldn’t.” 

“Even if you had, Richard, the punishment for flirting with someone isn’t death. Not even under Reagan,” Went smiled, and then sobered. “Sorry, that was in poor taste. He had no right to do that, honestly, but the only way I could get the police to keep quiet about the nature of the attack was to decline to press charges.” 

“You knew all this time?” Richie’s voice broke slightly, and his parents nodded. “I need to sit down.” 

He sat on the floor. Eddie remained standing, his hand still clasped in Richie’s. Richie tugged on his arm, and Eddie knelt on the floor next to him. Their palms were sweaty, and Richie wasn’t sure which one of them was responsible for it. 

“We want you to be safe,” Maggie said, and Richie felt nauseous. 

He couldn’t say  _ I am  _ because that would be a lie, he remembered the carnival, and he knew Eddie did too, and they knew someone had chased Stan home from the drugstore last week and screamed slurs at him, and Stan wasn’t even gay. 

“I, okay,” Richie managed. “Thanks?”

“Are you asking us or telling us?”

“Oh hush,” Maggie said. “Is there anything you need, Richie?”

“Um,” Richie rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. “A hug? Maybe?” 

His parents exchanged a look. “Will that help you feel safe?”

“Yeah,” Richie’s voice was very small. 

In a few steps, Maggie and Went had crossed the living room and crouched on the floor next to Richie. His dad wrapped his arms around Richie’s shoulders from behind, and his mom tucked her chin onto his shoulder and snaked an arm around his waist. With her other arm, she reached for Eddie. She pulled him sharply into the embrace when he began to object. It was an odd, uncomfortable assortment of limbs, with Richie’s head craned back to rest on his dad’s shoulder and Eddie’s right arm squished awkwardly between Richie’s thigh and Maggie’s stomach, but it felt right, somehow. 

Richie felt Eddie tug on his hand, and he’d only just opened his eyes to see what he needed when Eddie burst into tears. 

“What’s wrong?” Richie’s mom murmured. 

“His mom doesn’t hug him,” Richie explained succinctly. 

Maggie made a soft sound, and unraveled herself from Richie to wrap both of her arms around Eddie, who fitted his body against hers immediately and hid his face in her blouse. 

“That’s what we want to protect you from,” Went said quietly, right into Richie’s ear. His voice was thick and unusual, and Richie felt emotional at the sound of it. “How do we keep you safe from cruelty like that?” 

Richie reached up and grabbed his dad’s wrist. He closed his eyes again. 

“Like this,” he said. 

A loud clap of thunder startled the group apart. Richie’s parents went back to the living room, and Richie and Eddie went up to his bedroom, where they made a pile of blankets on the floor and plugged in the Nintendo and stayed there until Maggie called them down for dinner. It felt normal, like his life had suddenly shifted into place and Richie no longer had to worry about things falling apart. He held Eddie’s hand under the dinner table and waited for the rain to pass, and everything was okay. 


	4. SUMMER 1997

> _i am afraid to touch you.   
_ _i think you will cry out in pain.   
i think you will be warm, like skin. _
> 
> _ \- _margaret atwood 

* * *

JUNE 

* * *

The summer before Eddie’s senior year of college, Richie and Eddie moved into their first apartment. It was a tiny fifth floor walk-up with bars on every window except the one that led to the fire escape, and a permanent rust ring in the bathtub, but it was clean, and it came partially furnished. Most importantly, though, it was theirs. 

They had a tiny fridge, and a sink, and a stove, and a small breakfast nook. Richie had shelves for his books, there was a designated spot for their records crates and tape deck stereo, Eddie had a giant oversized club chair with a fluffy throw blanket that he shoved right up underneath the window so that he could watch the sunset without getting up. Their bed was the only thing that fit into the bedroom, but it was a queen sized bed, big enough for both of them. 

It was a big step forward for them, because they’d never lived together before. Eddie’s roommate had hated visitors, so Richie was mostly exiled from his dorm room, and Eddie’s class schedule rarely matched up with Richie’s work schedule. They still saw each other every day, but they didn’t sleep together, and Eddie had been more than a little apprehensive about what it would be like to live with Richie. 

Richie was messy. He snored, he left his dirty socks on the bathroom floor, and he didn’t think it was necessary to make the bed every morning. After a few weeks, Eddie realized these things did not bother him so much, because there were more good things about living with Richie than annoying things. 

There were no parents around, no roommates, nobody’s rules to follow but their own. Richie made breakfast every morning, rinsed out the tub after he showered so there was no hair in the drain, and didn’t complain when Eddie insisted they change the sheets every two weeks. He even took them to the laundromat on his day off while Eddie was at class. he dirty socks did not matter in the long run, and living with Richie was great. 

Sleeping with Richie, however, was not. Richie was a cuddler. Richie was like a leech. Or moss. Something that attached itself and didn’t let go. Years of nightmares had made Eddie a light sleeper, so every time Richie coughed or sneezed or burped or kicked in his sleep, it would startle Eddie awake, and Richie would be wrapped around his body like a sloth. Or a koala. Or a python. 

Eddie did not like being the little spoon. It was hot and sweaty, and he didn’t like being held onto. Sometimes in his sleep he would panic, afraid he was tied to the bed or cocooned in a blanket or being buried under pillows, and he’d wake up to find Richie was somehow entirely on top of him, shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe, but since Eddie was half a foot shorter and sixty pounds lighter, Richie could kill him if he kept that up, probably. 

Richie, however, could not sleep if he was not constantly aware of another body in bed with him. He would sometimes half wake, groggy and confused, and he would look around the room. His gaze would finally travel down to Eddie’s annoyed expression. A grin would crack over his face, and he’d press a disgusting, sloppy, sleepy kiss in the vicinity of Eddie’s mouth, usually his chin or nose, and then his head would drop like a rock directly onto Eddie’s chest, and he’d go back to sleep. It was nice to be loved, but really. 

The obvious solution, to Eddie at least, was that Richie would be the little spoon. He’d yet to suggest it, and Richie seemed content to wrap himself entirely and completely around Eddie _ every single night _so he wasn’t sure how it would go over, but something had to give. 

Spooning was the biggest issue pressing on Eddie’s mind those first weeks of summer, because he’d made really good grades that year, and he’d gotten a job at a garage part-time, and it paid well enough that Richie was able to cut back on his hours at the bar where he worked and start focusing on his own academic career. RIchie wanted to go into politics, or possibly film, because they didn’t offer Bachelor’s degrees in jokes. Just _ as _ jokes, Richie had quipped. He’d sent in a few applications and spent more than a few nights lying awake worrying about how to pay for all of it, and then a few more worrying about keeping up academically after he’d been out of school for so long. Eddie told him not to worry, his grades had always been good, his medication was still effective, and they could always ask his parents for help. That thought horrified Richie, but it helped him sleep better to have solutions in place. 

It was nice, to not worry. They weren’t well off, by any means, but their rent was paid and they had food in the refrigerator and Richie’s parents still sent them money on every major and minor holiday and sometimes just because, so they were luckier than most, and Eddie wasn’t taking any of it for granted. To be able to come home to Richie at the end of the day and fall into bed with him in a comfortable, sparsely furnished apartment was a privilege. Even if Richie had no sense of personal space and seemed determined to smother Eddie in his sleep. 

As he unlocked their front door, he decided the simplest thing would be to mention it, point blank, and see what happened. Richie was a pretty reasonable guy, and they’d been getting better at the whole _ serious adult conversation _thing, so he didn’t see how it could go wrong. 

He slammed the front door shut behind himself and called, “Honey, I’m home!” 

Richie poked his head out of their kitchenette with the phone pressed to his ear and held his finger to his lips. Someone was talking on the other end of the line, high pitched and fast, and Eddie could’ve sworn the cadence was familiar, but he thought nothing of it. He blew Richie a kiss, which Richie held up his hand and caught, then tucked into the front pocket of his hideous blue and white Hawaiian shirt. He grinned, and ducked back into the kitchen. Eddie untied his work boots, went to the bathroom and washed the grease off his hands and arms, and meandered back into the living room. 

Richie was waiting for him there, his face unusually serious.

“Hey,” Eddie said. 

“Hey,” Richie held out his hand to Eddie and turned his face, expecting a kiss.

Eddie took his hand and kissed him. “Who was on the phone?” 

“Your mom.”

“Come on Rich, Jesus Christ, be serious for once in your life.”

“I am being serious. It was your mom.” 

“Oh,” Eddie took a step back. 

“I’m sorry for jumping down your throat, Richie,” Richie intoned in what was known as _ the Eddie voice. _It sounded nothing like Eddie.

“You _ wish _I was down your throat,” Eddie grumbled.

Richie grinned. “Good one.”

“Shut up,” Eddie frowned. “What did she want?”

“She wanted to know why I was answering your phone.”

“And you said?”   
  
“I wanted to know how she got our phone number, so I asked her, and she flipped out when I called it _ our _phone number.” 

“Who gave it to her?” Eddie asked, and then with a teasing lilt to his voice, “Your mom?” 

Richie grinned, but he said, “Yeah.”

They were both a little unsettled by Sonia’s phone call, and the jokes were doing nothing to lighten the mood. Eddie hadn’t heard from his mother since he left Derry. It had been nearly three years, and she hadn’t even sent a Christmas card. He’d half expected her to send the police looking for him after he hadn’t come running home in the first week, but instead, she seemed to have forgotten he existed. 

It bothered him, for some reason. He didn’t realize just how suffocating his mother was until she was no longer around, but it still felt strange. Even now, just discussing her, he could feel himself regressing. Familiar anxieties and impulses came creeping back, and it wasn’t until Richie reached out and pressed his thumb to Eddie’s chin that he realized he was biting his lip hard enough to break the skin. 

“What’s going on in your head?” Richie squeezed his hand gently.

“It’s been years, Rich.” 

“It has,” Richie agreed. “She wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“What did you tell her?” Eddie idly twisted the ring on Richie’s finger around and around. 

“I told her you were fine,” Richie held his hand very still and let Eddie fidget. “She asked about your grades, and she wanted to know if you were taking any medications. I told her the truth. You have great grades, and you’re taking your anxiety medication, like you always do, but you’re not on anything else.” 

“Did you tell her I quit the inhaler?” 

“I did.” 

Eddie let go of Richie’s hand. He went into the kitchen and got a glass of water, then he came back into the living room and sat down on the couch. After a moment, Richie came and sat beside him. 

“What did she say?” 

“She freaked out.” 

“How many times did she freak out?” Eddie took a sip of water. 

“Six,” Richie counted off on his fingers. “Once when I answered the phone, again when I said it was our phone, when I mentioned the inhaler, when I told her we were together and my parents knew, when she heard your voice, and when I said you would call her if you wanted to talk to her. She was still freaking out when I hung up the phone.” 

“Jesus.” 

“Was that okay?” Richie looked suddenly concerned. “I guess I got carried away, but she drives me up the wall.”

Eddie smiled. “What? You two? I thought you were made for each other. You’re telling me you didn’t part on amicable terms?” 

“Hey,” Richie pushed him playfully. “Eds makes a mom joke! They grow up so fast.” 

Eddie laughed lightly, but his mood quickly soured. The day he left home, his mother had accused him of running away from her. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he hadn’t said _ yeah, no shit, _but that comment still haunted him, in the way that many remarks his mother made still did. Eddie did not like to run away from things. He wasn’t confrontational, necessarily, but he wasn’t a coward. Leaving home had been brave, because it wasn’t good for him to stay there, but it had also been running away. 

Somehow, it hadn’t worked. Sometimes, it felt like he was still running. He went for a jog every morning, but that was for fun and recreation and to give Richie time to make breakfast. In his dreams and in his head, though, he was still running, so fast his thighs quivered and his chest ached, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. His mother was always right there, saying, _ Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here! You can’t abandon me, I’m your mother! _It was strange, to still be running away from something he thought he’d already left behind. 

“I think the best thing I ever did for myself was leave,” Eddie said quietly.

“I agree, Spaghetti. You’re different when you’re not around her.”

“Different?” Eddie knew that was true, but he thought most of it was on the inside. You’d have to be in his head to know exactly what his mother had done and what he’d been working so hard to undo. 

“Yeah, it’s like,” Richie considered for a moment, “When you don’t have to go home to her at the end of the day and hear about how sharing other people’s oxygen can give you the plague, you’re not so afraid to breathe.” 

“Oh,” Eddie said. “I guess.” 

“Are you going to call her back?”

_ Don’t leave me here! _

“No.”

“Okay.”

Eddie didn’t have to ask to know Richie supported his decision. “I’m tired.”

“You want to take a nap?” Richie offered. “I’ll jump in the shower.” 

Eddie nodded, and together, they got off the couch. Before they turned and headed to their bedroom, Richie caught Eddie’s wrist in his hand. 

“I’m proud of you, Eds,” he murmured. His thumb pressed into Eddie’s pulse point, once, and then he dropped his arm. He went into the bedroom, whistling tunelessly. After a moment, Eddie followed him. 

He took off his clothes and collapsed onto their half-made bed to wait for Richie. Showers were noisy and industrious affairs for Richie. There was the atonal singing of Beach Boys songs, the occasional dropped shampoo bottle, the muttered cursing when he got soap in his eyes or nicked himself shaving. It was comforting, white noise reminding Eddie that he wasn’t alone. The water shut off, and Eddie rolled over on the bed so that he was sitting up, facing the bathroom door. 

Richie emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, still whistling softly. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and Eddie could see his eyes were heavy with exhaustion. He was wearing one of his favorite t-shirts, one that Eddie knew was soft and well worn and smelled permanently like Richie. He looked soft and sleepy and Eddie,still shaken, just wanted to hold him. Then, he realized he could. Richie had started to climb up onto the bed when Eddie held up both hands, palms to Richie’s chest, and said, “Wait.”

It came out a little more forcefully than he meant it to, and Richie took a large step back. He looked confused and a little hurt, but he didn’t try to cross the boundary Eddie had created with his hands. 

“What’s up?” Richie asked, and Eddie winced at the forced casual tone in his voice. 

“Since we’re talking about things, there’s something I have been meaning to tell you.”

Richie took another step back. “Okay…”

Eddie took a deep breath and said, “I don’t like it when you hold onto me while we’re sleeping.”

If Richie looked hurt before, he looked devastated now. “Oh.”

“It’s just, sometimes, the nightmares, y'know? And I think something’s got me.”

“It’s just me, though,” Richie frowned. 

“I know, but you know what it’s like. I wake up, I don’t know where I am, and I can’t move my arms because somebody’s holding onto me. And it’s been bothering me for a while.” 

“So, what? You want to get twin beds? Like Rob and Laura?” 

“No!” Eddie said loudly, firmly. “No, not at all.”

“Then what, Eddie?” Richie nervously pulled on the hem of his shirt. 

Eddie thought to himself _ we are so bad at this _and then he said, “I was going to suggest that you be the little spoon. Sometimes. Maybe.” 

Richie’s entire face changed in an instant. Suddenly he was grinning like a cheshire cat, and he laughed loudly. “Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that, Eddie? Scared the shit out of me, thought you were gonna put me in the doghouse. Fuck yeah I’ll be your little spoon.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, hell yeah. Lie the fuck down. You’re gonna cuddle the shit out of me, I can’t wait.”

Eddie shuffled back on the bed and lay down. Richie heaved himself onto the mattress theatrically and sidled his body up to Eddie’s.

“Do your worst,” he said, and then he kissed Eddie on the cheek. 

Without thinking, Eddie rolled onto his side and wrapped an arm around Richie’s waist. His other arm was folded under his head. Richie quickly settled himself into the curve of Eddie’s body and rested his arm on top of Eddie’s, so that their hands were touching, but they weren’t clasped together. Eddie’s forehead rested at the nape of Richie’s neck, and Richie’s legs were pulled almost up to his armpits to make room for Eddie to tuck his knees behind them, but there was a dopey, delighted smile on Richie’s face.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Richie said quietly. “This is it, Eds. We can never leave this bed, now. I wanna die like this.”

Eddie scoffed. “Drama queen.”

“You just spit on my neck,” Richie murmured, his voice already edged with sleep. “Hot.”

“Shut up.” 

“Sure thing, cutie.” 

* * *

JULY 

* * *

Richie and Eddie had been together for five years when Eddie began to wonder why they had never had sex. Since he and Richie has started dating, they’d never done anything more than make out. They kissed a lot, too much, according to Ben, and Beverly, and Stan, and Eddie’s old college roommate, and pretty much anyone who had known them longer than a week. A week, because that was how long it took to figure out if someone was going to react badly or not. 

Their fifth anniversary was approaching, and they didn’t even own condoms. Lube, they had, because Richie used it to jack off, but there were no condoms in their apartment, and they’d yet to do anything more risqué than grinding on each other until they had to stop. Eddie was sure there were a million reasons why things had happened this way, but for the life of him he could not think of a single one. It wasn’t that they weren’t attracted to each other, and it wasn’t that they didn’t have sex drives. Richie masturbated three or four times a week, and Eddie at least twice, and that wasn’t a secret, in fact, they were pretty open with each other about it. 

However, when it came to taking the next step, it seemed like they had both assumed the other would initiate when they were ready. Eddie was starting to think he might be ready, but even if he wasn’t _ ready _, per se, Eddie was curious. He was also terrified. 

He wondered what sex would be like. It had taken him a long time to get used to the idea of kissing Richie, and he’d summoned every ounce of blind courage that day by the kissing bridge. He remembered the enormity of that, and he had initially thought it might be better to abstain from sex entirely, or else he might end up having a stroke or an aneurysm or an apoplectic fit. Eddie had never had an apoplectic fit (or a stroke or an aneurysm) but he had also never had sex, and who’s to say he couldn’t have two first time experiences in one evening? 

The idea of giving a blowjob was still nauseating to him, and probably would be for a while. A handjob, he could handle. Maybe. It was the same thing he did in the shower, except with someone else’s penis. More specifically, Richie’s penis, which was also something Eddie spent a lot of time thinking about. He would never admit that to Richie; it would most likely render him intolerable. Eddie could practically hear him now, _ You got dick on the brain, Eds? Should I start calling you Dick Head? No, wait, I wouldn’t do that. Never mind. I got overwhelmed when you said the word penis and it’ll probably be a while before the blood comes back to my brain. _

Then there was _ actual _ sex, like penetrative intercourse, even though Eddie would personally quantify a blowjob as _ actual _sex, but that was neither here nor there. Intercourse was completely out of the question, because Eddie was almost entirely certain he’d want to be the one who received, and that was not going to happen, never in a million years, no matter how many times he dreamed about it and woke up feeling sick to his stomach. 

Richie had never mentioned wanting more, despite his constant barrage of innuendo and jokes and quipping about his proficiency and everyone else’s sorry, sad states of virginity (all lies; Richie and Eddie were the only ones in their group who hadn’t lost their virginities), he was surprisingly tame when it came to touching Eddie. Eddie couldn’t help but feel that maybe Richie was holding back because he thought Eddie wasn’t ready, and they’d tried it, years ago, with Eddie stumbling through a proposition and Richie turning him down awkwardly but without prejudice. Because truly, neither of them were ready. Or they hadn’t been, before. 

Eddie had straddled Richie often enough to know that Richie got hard when they kissed. It didn’t take him long, either, and Eddie always climbed off of him before something embarrassing could happen. Until he didn’t, and Richie had bitten his tongue so hard it bled and then he’d nearly cried when the wet spot on his jeans chafed a huge raw patch on his thigh. Eddie felt guilty about that, because he’d done it on purpose. He didn’t mean to upset Richie, he just wanted to know what it was like. He wanted to see Richie come apart. It was all consuming, how badly he wanted Richie. The only thing was, he didn’t know _ how _he wanted Richie. All he knew was that sometimes when they were kissing, Eddie would bite Richie’s lip, and he would make a fantastic sound, a sort of high pitched moan that was also kind of a laugh. Eddie loved it, and he wanted more of that. 

With that thought in his head, he decided he would bring it up during one of their movie nights. Those were usually pretty relaxed. Richie would lay with his head in Eddie’s lap like he always did, and Eddie would bring it up nonchalantly and in a straight forward manner, and they’d have an adult discussion about their sex life. He got as far as Richie’s head in his lap when his resolve crumbled and he said the first thing that came to mind. 

“I think we should do more,” Eddie said. 

“Okay,” Richie said slowly. “Like, you want to bust out the old ping pong table? Join a bingo league? Help little old ladies across the street?” 

“No, I mean like,” Eddie waved a hand between them. “All we ever do is kiss.”

“You sound like Ben.”

“What’s second base if neither of us have breasts?”

“Breasts,” Richie echoed. He turned off the TV. 

“What? I know that’s what they’re called, I’m not that gay.”

“Only chickens have breasts, Edward. Women have t-“

“You better shut up,” Eddie pointed a finger at him. “I won’t let you anywhere near my dick if you say one more sexist thing.”

Richie’s eyes lit up. “You’re gonna let me near your dick? Holy fuck. I think I might cry. Wait, I’m gonna go get a camera, I want to remember this forever. A Kodak moment, holy fucking shit.” 

“Stop,” Eddie shoved at him, and Richie sat up. He re-situated himself on the couch so that his legs were crossed in front of him and he was facing Eddie, one knee pressed against the back of the couch. 

“We should talk about this,” Richie said.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Eddie’s face felt hot. “What do you want to do?”

“What?”

“To my dick.”

Richie made a face. “That shouldn’t be the primary focus of this conversation.”

“I want to know, though.”

“I guess I’d blow you,” Richie said thoughtfully. 

“You guess?” Eddie was equally offended and surprised by Richie’s casual tone. 

“Please don’t make me say out loud that I dream about it nearly every night, like, to the point my mouth starts watering when you walk into the room.”

“That’s horrible,” Eddie muttered.

“I’m serious,” Richie said, and his face did look very serious, “If you don’t shove your dick down my throat sometime soon I’m gonna drown in my own spit.” 

“Okay, first of all, I’m not shoving anything anywhere,” Eddie folded his arms over his chest, “And second of all, that’s disgusting.”

“How is it disgusting?” Richie asked gently. “Sex is normal, y’know. Like, everybody does it.” 

“Says you,” Eddie shot back. “And besides, we are not everybody.” 

“I know,” Richie reached out and rested a hand on Eddie’s thigh. “What are you worried about?” 

“Aren’t you worried it’ll be gross?” 

“I think you probably have the cleanest nads for nine counties, Eds.”

That is not what Eddie had meant. “Please don’t call them my nads.”

“Nuts? Balls? Testicles? Or are you a sack man?” Richie wiggled his eyebrows mischievously. “Lemme at your sack, Spaghedward.”

“That’s quite possibly the least sexy sentence anyone has ever said in the history of the world.” 

“It’s a talent. Can I suck your dick, or what? It’ll shut me up.” 

“This is an incentive based program now?”

“Please, Eddie,” Richie said, his voice suddenly serious. “It can be so good, I’ll show you.”

“You’ve never sucked a dick before in your life.”

“I think about it enough to consider myself a pro,” Richie assured him. 

“No, not yet. I need to know when you changed your mind,” Eddie said insistently. “Last time I brought it up you said you weren’t ready, and now suddenly you’re ready, and apparently you’ve been ready long enough that you obsessively think about my dick in your mouth. How did you get there so fast and I’m still worried about logistics and fluids? I don’t want your dick in my mouth. I don’t know if I want mine in your mouth. What if you choke? What if I have a panic attack? What if you don’t like it? What if it’s awful and you decide you don’t want me anymore?”

“Eds, why didn’t you tell me you were worried about that?” Richie tried not to look upset, but there was an undeniable note of hurt in his voice. “You know I’m not like that, right? I would never leave you, like, ever, but especially not because of this.” 

“It’s been five years. We’ve never had sex.”  
  
“Yeah, I know, I’m also in this relationship.” 

“What if that’s the only reason this is working?”

“Abstinence does not make the heart grow fonder.” 

“Oh my God, just suck my fucking dick if it’s going to make you stop telling jokes for five fucking seconds,” Eddie said furiously.

Richie opened his mouth in shock, and then closed it. “Okay. You sure? That’s a serious, concrete yes?”

“If I at any time say stop, you get the fuck off me.”

“Duh,” Richie said, and then when Eddie shot him a look, “Yes. Okay. Absolutely. You make the rules.” 

“We both make rules,” Eddie said. “Now kiss me.” 

Richie nodded, and climbed onto Eddie’s lap without hesitation. He settled his legs on either side of Eddie’s thighs, grabbed his face, and kissed him. 

So far, so good. Kissing was familiar, and they were good at it. Eddie could relax into it, and then he’d be ready. When Richie started rolling his hips into Eddie’s, he was surprised at how good it felt. Surprised enough that he made a strained sound, something like a repressed moan. It made Richie stop kissing Eddie long enough to grin at him, and repeat the same motion of his hips.

“Fuck,” Eddie rested his hands on Richie’s waist. 

There was a sense of urgency in Richie’s movements that made Eddie feel lightheaded. His hands left Eddie’s face, and Eddie held his breath, waiting to see what he would do. One hand wrapped around the back of Eddie’s neck, and the other came down to his lap. 

“Can I touch you?” Richie asked. 

“Yeah,” Eddie replied.

Richie cupped him through his jeans, and Eddie felt like crying. He screwed his eyes shut and forced himself to take a few deep breaths. 

“Still okay?” Richie pressed a sloppy, absent minded kiss to Eddie’s chin.

Eddie made a small affirmative sound, something like _ guh _, and Richie laughed. The space between them was impossibly hot, and the atmosphere felt weighted, like every infinitesimal shift of their muscles held meaning. Richie kissed him again, and dragged his hand slowly across the denim of Eddie’s jeans. 

Richie gently bit down on Eddie’s bottom lip and pulled away slowly. “Ready?”

Eddie paused. He really wanted another kiss. “Maybe?”

Richie’s hand stilled. “If it’s not a yes, you’re not ready.”

“You could kiss me again.” 

“Oh, I could, could I?” Richie teased, but he leaned in and kissed him again. 

Eddie dug his fingers into Richie’s waist, and when he pulled away to breathe, he said, “Okay.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

With another firm, searing kiss, Richie slid off Eddie’s lap and situated himself on the floor in front of him. He rested his hands on Eddie’s thighs, and looked up at him.

“What?” 

“I love you,” Richie said. 

“Thanks,” Eddie replied. 

Richie laughed brightly. He dropped a kiss to Eddie’s knee, reached up, and unzipped his jeans. “Lift up.” 

Eddie braced his elbows against the couch and lifted his hips. Richie pulled his jeans and boxers down in one swift move, which Eddie was not expecting. 

“Fuck,” Eddie dropped himself back onto the sofa and resolutely did not look down at his lap. 

“You’re acting like you’ve never had a boner before.”

“The only person who’s ever touched my boner is me,” Eddie said, and his breath hiccuped slightly when Richie kissed his thigh. 

“If you want me to stop, just say so,” Richie reminded him.

“What do I say if I want you to speed up?” 

“Please?” Richie suggested.

“Fuck off,” Eddie said, but the vehemence bled out of his tone when Richie finally wrapped a hand around his dick. “God.”

Richie laughed again, but he sounded a little dazed. When Eddie looked down at him, his eyes were fixed on the place where he was touching Eddie. His eyes were wide behind his glasses and his mouth was a little slack, like he was anticipating it, and that made something unfurl in Eddie’s chest. 

Then Richie asked, “Are you going to freak out if I spit in my hand?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Your dick is dry and so is my hand,” Richie explained patiently. 

“Your mouth is not,” Eddie argued. 

“You have to be fully hard before I put it in my mouth.”

Eddie dug his thumbs into his eyes. “I hate this.” 

“I’ll spit really quietly,” Richie said, and Eddie laughed. 

“Fine, whatever, just please,” Eddie thrust his hips once and hissed at the drag of Richie’s hand. “Do something.” 

Richie pulled his hand away, and Eddie sighed when he quietly, but unceremoniously spit into his open palm. When Richie took him in hand again, he started stroking him, and even if Eddie was struggling with the idea of _ spit _, it did feel really good. Way better than he thought it would, if he was being honest.

“You look pleasantly surprised,” Richie observed. His pace increased, and Eddie felt hot all over. “Good?”

“You know it is, you asshole,” Eddie retorted with a gasp.

Richie twisted his wrist on the downstroke, and Eddie cried out. His hips canted up of their own accord, and his hands came to rest on top of his head. 

“If you do that when I am blowing you, I will throw up.”

“Thanks for the heads up, but if you don’t do something soon, we won’t even get that far.”

“Okay,” Richie said evenly. He shifted forward on his knees, and leaned over Eddie’s lap. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

Eddie’s response was a desperate groan. 

Richie kissed the tip of Eddie’s penis and Eddie braced himself, but then Richie was pulling away again to say in something that was reminiscent of a baseball commentator, “I want to thank you, I never dreamed this would be possible. It’s all because of you we are here today, and-“

“Richie, please put my dick in your mouth. Please. I think I’m going to cry.” 

Richie shrugged, and slid his lips over the tip of Eddie’s dick. He sucked once, almost experimentally, and Eddie grabbed handfuls of his own hair. It was several mind numbing moments of clumsy sucking and maneuvering before Richie’s hand and mouth found a coordinated rhythm, and Eddie couldn’t stop himself from whimpering and shifting his hips restlessly. 

In theory, Eddie should hate everything about the entire situation. There was drool everywhere, and on every other downstroke, he could see the head of his penis poking against Richie’s cheek. It was disgusting, frankly. Every so often, Richie’s teeth would catch or his grip would falter, and Eddie would flinch, which would make Richie gag, but once they hit a stride, Eddie could feel the orgasm tightening in his stomach. 

“I’m gonna,” he warned, and then made a punched out sound. At that, Richie doubled down, and flicked his tongue against the underside of Eddie’s shaft. Eddie’s body jerked, and he felt himself hit the back of Richie’s throat, and that was all it took. He reached out with a hand and grabbed Richie’s hair, and he came. 

Richie choked, which was decidedly unsexy, and then he pulled away spit into his hand. He paused for a moment and worked his jaw, then he looked down at the semen in his hand. “Fuck, you’re like a horse.”

“That’s...sorry,” Eddie felt like his bones had been replaced with Jello. His chest was heaving, and his skin was hot. He felt closer to death than he ever had before. 

“Seriously, do you not jack off? We just killed like three hundred children. I swallowed eighty of your mom’s grandkids. I feel like I should turn myself in.” 

“You swallowed?”

“Some of it, yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Should I not have? Was that a line we didn’t establish? I can’t not cross it if you don’t draw it in the sand first.”

“No, it’s okay, I just,” Eddie felt his cheeks heat up. “What does it taste like?”

“Jizz? Or dick?”

Eddie waved a hand absently, as if to say _ either. _

Richie considered the question. “Skin. Like a salty hickey.”

“Salty?”

“Maybe not salty. Tangy? Except that makes me think of barbecue sauce. Your dick does not taste like barbecue sauce.”

“Thanks,” Eddie said dryly. 

“You’re welcome,” Richie replied sincerely. “It’s not bad, though. Different, but not bad.” 

“That’s a comfort.” 

Richie stood up, winced, and shook out the stiffness in his knees. There was a wet spot on the front of his jeans, and as soon as Eddie realized what it was, his vision whited out. 

“Please go wash your hands,” Eddie said weakly. 

“Oh,” Richie looked down at his upturned palm. “Right.”

He shuffled away a little awkwardly. Eddie took advantage of his absence, pulled up his boxers, kicked his jeans somewhere across the room, and lay back on the couch. He covered his face with his hands, and breathed. 

Richie came back wearing clean pajama pants. His face was a little red, and he shifted uncomfortably before he asked, “So?”

“Pretty good,” Eddie mumbled. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Rich,” Eddie sat up and held his arms out. 

Richie came to him and enveloped himself in Eddie’s embrace. “It was better than I thought it would be.”

“Gee, thanks,” Richie snorted. “What a review.” 

“Stop,” Eddie poked Richie in the ribs. “You know what I meant.”

“Yeah,” Richie acquiesced. 

After a moment, Eddie said, “I think I want to take it. The first time.” 

Richie nodded. “I’m okay with that.”

“Not...soon, though. It’s a lot. Mentally.”

“Okay,” Richie said easily. “Just let me know.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad? Why the fuck would I be mad?” Richie leaned back a little so that he could look Eddie in the eye. “You let me give you a blowjob and then you tell me that one day you’re gonna let me fuck you. This is the best day of my life.”

“I..._ let _ you?”

“Yeah,” Richie drew his eyebrows together. “Couldn’t have done it without you and your permission, Eds. We make a great team.”

“So, you liked it?”

“Yeah, I did,” Richie smiled at him bemusedly. “I came in my pants like thirty seconds in.”

“Is that when you bit me?”

“No, that was just ‘cus I’m a virgin. I’ll get over it. Seriously though, Eddie, I like you. I like touching you, and kissing you, and if you never want another blowjob ever again, it’s okay. If you never give me one, it’s okay. If you end up never wanting sex or you turn out to be a top, that’s also okay. Whatever you want, alright? I’m cool with anything. I’m a horny son of a bitch but I’m not gonna wither and die without sex. We’ve been doing fine so far. Besides, I’d rather have you than get my dick wet. Don’t tell Bill.”

“I will never mention your dick to Bill,” Eddie promised. 

“Smart ass,” Richie leaned back into Eddie and rested his head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” 

* * *

AUGUST

* * *

There were many things Richie did not miss about Derry. The humidity was one. Eddie’s mom was another. Every landmark in town reminding him of some horrible trauma or homophobic attack was a third. He hadn’t come back until now for a reason, but it was his mother’s birthday, and his dad bought their train tickets, and Richie had big news for his parents anyway, so he couldn’t put it off any longer. There was an acceptance letter to Northeastern burning a hole in his pocket and a hastily wrapped birthday present for his mother in Eddie’s backpack. 

It felt surreal, to be standing on his front porch after five years. The neighborhood he grew up in hadn’t changed, and Richie would wager that nothing else had, either. The town was stagnant. Eddie might say _ consistent _, but Richie thought that was too flattering. Derry was a fly trapped in amber, dead and stuck, and Richie wished he found it all as morbidly fascinating as everyone else seemed to. 

They’d been on the porch for about five minutes now, and Richie knew as well as Eddie did that his parents were waiting on the other side of the front door. Eddie waited patiently beside him while Richie debated turning around, getting back in the car, and going home to Boston. 

“Are we going in, or?” Eddie nudged Richie lightly with his arm. 

Richie caught sight of his mother through the sidelight, and grinned, before loudly saying, “Fuck no, my parents are in there.”

The front door whipped open, and Maggie was standing there, her face wide with shock and affection. “Richard! Watch your mouth!” 

“Sure thing, Marjorie,” Richie teased. 

She rolled her eyes and opened her arms. Eddie dropped Richie’s duffel on the porch and walked right into them. 

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi, honey,” she gripped him tightly. “How have you been?”  
  
“Good,” Eddie stepped back and smiled at her. “Really good, actually.” 

Wentworth came into the front hall and clapped his hands together once at the sight of them. “Hello, son.”  
  
“Hey, dad,” Richie said at the exact same moment Eddie said, “Hi, Went.” 

_ Holy shit, _Richie thought. Then his dad was hugging Eddie, and his mom pulled him into the house. His duffel bag was thrust into his hand, and they were ushered up the stairs to Richie’s room. As he’d expected, it hadn’t changed at all. He wouldn’t be surprised if his rocket ship sheets were still on the bed. When the door shut behind them, Richie turned to Eddie. 

“My dad called you son.”

“Yeah,” Eddie dumped his backpack out on the bed. “You called your mom Marjorie. Is that her name?”  
  
“No,” Richie said. “Are you...friends with my parents?”  
  
Eddie looked at him oddly. “I guess? What’s the big deal? Just because my dad’s dead doesn’t mean I’m trying to steal yours.”

“No, that’s not,” Richie sighed and tossed his bag onto the bed next to Eddie’s small pile of clothing. “I’m not mad. It’s just unexpected.”  
  
“It’s surprising that they like me?”   
  
“Don’t be difficult. It’s just weird they’re so cool with this. It’s weird that _ you’re _cool with this.” 

“They’re letting us share a bed,” Eddie said pointedly. “Your mom likes me. We talk on the phone, sometimes.” 

Richie already knew that, but he asked anyway, “So, does she know?” 

“Of course not,” Eddie frowned. “That’s your news to give them, Rich.” 

“Okay,” Richie said, and he was about to follow up with _ but would you ask them because I am chicken-shit when it comes to my dad, _but his mom called them down for dinner, and Eddie was out of the room quicker than a wink. Richie sighed, following him downstairs less enthusiastically. 

His parents were clearly very glad to see them, and the atmosphere was pleasant. Eddie sat across from him and kicked his leg under the table every so often while his mother caught them up on the family and Derry news. What surprised him most was that it felt comfortable to sit at the table and listen to his parents make conversation with Eddie like he was a member of the family, even though his mounting anxiety was keeping him from really enjoying it. 

“Something on your mind, Richard?” his dad asked. 

“No, not at all, never,” Richie said too quickly. “Why would there be something on my mind? I’ve never had anything on my mind.” 

“Alright,” Went said slowly. “Then could you pass your mother the salt? She’s asked four times.”  
  
“Sorry,” Richie mumbled. He passed the salt. Eddie’s ankle brushed up against his under the table, and when he looked at him, Eddie was smiling. 

“So, how are you boys doing?” Maggie asked, her tone carefully neutral. “Eddie tells me you moved into a new apartment, recently.”

Wentworth looked up from his plate and gestured between them with his fork. “Just the two of you?” 

“Yeah,” Richie bit back an edge of defensiveness, and smiled at his mom. “It’s been great. We have a place to cook and everything.”

“And how is that going? You always did have a knack for it.” 

“Fine,” Richie pushed his peas around on his plate, and then he said in a half-hearted rendition of his Trophy Wife Voice, “I have dinner on the table for my man when he comes home from the rat race.” 

Eddie choked on his water, and Went choked on a pea. 

“Well,” Maggie looked at his dad severely. “I think that’s just wonderful. It’s so nice you have that sort of stability. Usually that doesn’t happen for young people until they get married.” 

Eddie made a strange sound at that, and reached for his napkin. 

Richie frowned and turned to him, “Do you ever think about that?”

“About what?” Eddie asked, his voice raspy from choking. 

“Being married.”

“We can’t get married,” Eddie was looking at him like he wanted to fly across the table and strangle the life out of him, but Richie didn’t care. Somehow they’d never talked about this in a serious way, and now he didn’t think he could get to the end of the meal without knowing how Eddie felt about it. 

“Eds, you and I are as close to married as we can get without involving the law.”

“How romantic.” 

“What, you want a ring? You want to celebrate an anniversary? You want my last name? I’ll give you all of that, you know I will.” 

Eddie blushed and looked down at the table. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Richie suddenly remembered their present company, and couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. “Sorry.” 

A long, awkward silence. Richie’s dad continued to eat his dinner, and Eddie cleared his throat several times. 

“Wait, just one minute,” Maggie said, breaking the quiet. “I have something for you.”  
  
She stood up and left the table. Richie could feel his dad looking at him, but he didn’t meet his gaze. 

“What was it your friends used to say?” Went suddenly asked. “When they wanted you to be quiet.”

“Beep beep,” Richie said. 

“That’s right. Do they still say it? Can’t imagine Eddie doesn’t find it helpful from time to-” 

“Eddie’s never beeped at me,” Richie interrupted.

Went paused, looked at Richie, and then back at Eddie. “Never?”

“No,” Eddie said. “I think he’s funny. And if he’s not, he always gets there eventually.”

Richie grinned, and shoved in a mouthful of potatoes. 

“I always thought that was a bit rude,” Went admitted. 

“Oh, me too, dad,” Richie said, his mouth full. “But whatever works, right?” 

Wentworth looked at Richie strangely, like he couldn’t quite figure out whether or not Richie was being sarcastic. After a moment he sobered and said, “I do feel bad, sometimes. That growing up was so hard for you.” 

“Yeah, well, it could have been worse,” Richie told him seriously, and then as Foghorn Leghorn, “You could’ve named me Wentworth.” 

Eddie laughed at that, and choked again when Wentworth turned his gaze on him. “You think the Colonel Chicken voice is funny?”  
  
“Dad, that’s not the KFC guy, it’s Foghorn Leghorn.” 

“Who?” 

“A cartoon,” Richie started to explain, but his mother came back in with her hands behind her back and a wicked smile on her face. 

She crossed to where Eddie was sitting, and handed him a small box. “That’s for you.” 

Richie and Wentworth realized what it was at the same time. 

“Mom.” 

“Maggie.”  
  
“Hush, both of you. Open it, Eddie.” 

Eddie shot Richie a panicked look, but he opened the small box. Inside was a little red velvet bag, and inside that bag was a gold ring. 

“Oh, shit,” Eddie said quietly. The ring tumbled out of the bag and into his palm, glinting in the low light of the dining room. Richie did not have to look at it to remember it. 

He could still picture the aged burnish of the metal, the vine looped around the band, and the engraved inscription on the inside. 

“What does it mean?” Eddie asked quietly.

Richie cleared his throat. “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” 

“That was my sister’s. Ruth. It was her wedding ring,” Went said. “She passed, just a year ago.” 

“Oh,” Eddie looked worried. “I don’t know if I can accept this.” 

“Try it on,” Maggie took the box away and sat down, her attitude nonchalant, completely unaware of what she’d done. 

Eddie tried it on every finger except the correct one, and Richie almost had to look away when it finally slid onto the ring finger of his left hand. 

“Perfect!” Maggie said. “That’s yours to keep then, Eddie. It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want to, but Went and I just want you to know that we love you, and-” 

“I think I want to go to college,” Richie blurted.

Went’s fork hit his plate with a jarring sound. Maggie paused, her wine glass halfway to her mouth. Eddie smiled encouragingly and twisted the ring around on his finger. 

“I mean, I am going to college,” Richie amended. “I got accepted. And everything.”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Went asked. 

Richie took a deep breath and steeled himself for the gauntlet. “Because I need you to help me pay for it and I couldn’t think of how to ask.” 

“What school?”  
  
“Northeastern.”

Went raised an eyebrow. “That’s where you are, correct, Eddie?”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie said. 

“Liberal arts, isn’t it?”

“Research. I’m in their business program.” 

“Ah. What’s your major, then, Richard?”

“Political science.”

“I knew it was a mistake to let you move to Boston,” Went pushed his chair back from the table and ran a hand through his hair. “Next thing you’ll be living on a commune.”  
  
“It’s the nineties, dad, nobody has communes anymore,” Richie grumbled, suddenly feeling all of fourteen again. 

“Went,” Maggie said gently. “Maybe he didn’t tell us because he knew you’d crack some joke about hippies and make the whole thing a lot more difficult than it already is.”

“Well,” Wentworth considered that. “All in good fun. Of course we’ll help you. You’ve got a college trust, you know. Or, maybe you didn’t. Would explain why you’ve spent all of dinner pretending to eat and making distressed faces at Edward over here. Plenty of money for it, Richard. How are you doing on your rent? What’s your place like?”

“Small,” Richie said, just as Eddie said, “Fine.” 

“Good,” Went cleared his throat. “Proud of you, son.” 

“Thanks,” Richie managed. 

“Thank you so much for dinner, Maggie,” Eddie stood up and looked at Richie. “We had a long drive, so we’re going to turn in early.”  
  
“Of course,” she said, a small, proud smile on her face. “Goodnight, dear.”   
  
Eddie dropped a kiss to her cheek as he went past, and he sent Richie another weighted look as he left the room. Richie sighed, stood up, and hesitated for a moment. 

“Thanks,” he finally said, his voice rough. “Mom. Dad. For all of it. College, and...Eddie. Really.”

“You’re welcome,” Wentworth said.   
  
“Sleep well, honey,” Maggie said. 

Richie nodded, and went to his room, but he paused in the hall outside. He felt both lighter than air and terrified beyond belief. 

College and Eddie, as he’d attempted to summarize, were both things he’d always imagined would be unattainable, and though he’d always had Eddie in a way, it was different now that he was wearing his aunt’s ring. It felt huge and wonderful and permanent. He’d never imagined Eddie would leave him, but he’d learned to never write off any option, however unlikely . 

Eddie had accepted the ring with little argument, and to anyone else it would appear that in the face of Richie’s fear and his parent’s enthusiasm, he couldn’t refuse it, but Richie knew Eddie, and he knew that if he’d wanted to say no, he would have. That thought alone made his head spin. College was another animal, something he’d worried about for years, but it took a backseat to Eddie, as nearly everything did. 

He’d considered college, but he’d never let himself consider Eddie, not in this way. Much like he’d stopped himself from thinking about kissing Eddie as a kid, he hadn’t thought about marrying him as an adult. It was all too good to be true, too scary, too much to hope for, but Eddie was on the other side of the bedroom door, wearing his aunt’s ring, and the whole thing carried the weight of his parent’s blessing. Like college. Not that his parents would have refused to let him go, but he couldn’t do it without their help. It was both one less thing he had to worry about and one more thing he had to look forward to. 

In all the commotion, Richie had entirely forgotten it was his mother’s birthday. He’d have to wait until tomorrow to unpack the gift he’d brought, because he didn’t think he could keep it together long enough to give it to her now. 

Richie had to bite his tongue to keep himself from crying, and went into the bedroom. Eddie was standing by the bed, the comforter in his hand and a delighted smile on his face. 

“What?” Richie asked, caught off guard. 

“Rocketship sheets.” 

After a split second of surprise, Richie collapsed into helpless laughter. Eddie laughed too, but mostly at Richie. It was a ridiculously good moment, so good that Richie could still hardly believe it was really happening to him. Eddie was laughing down at him, and those stupid fucking rocket ship sheets were on the bed, and he could relax. It was good to be home. 


	5. SUMMER 1999

> _"to love means to radiate with inexhaustible light." _
> 
> _ \- rainer maria rilke _

* * *

JUNE 

* * *

When Eddie’s mom died, it was Richie who got the phone call. It was the first week of June, sunny and humid, and Eddie was at work. Every window in their apartment was open, and the radio was so loud, Richie almost didn’t hear the phone when it rang. Afterwards, he sometimes wished he’d missed the call and their life had gone on, uninterrupted. They could’ve carried on just fine without ever knowing that Eddie’s mom had died of natural causes, alone, at age 56, and there was nobody to arrange her funeral. That wasn’t news you should ever have to give somebody.  _ Hey babe, how was work? Good? Great. Well, your mom’s dead, and your extended family fucked off when they found out you’re the only benefactor in the will, so you have to go home to Maine and bury her. I made noodles for dinner!  _

But, as it happened, Richie had answered the phone and spoken to the lawyer, and then later, he had sat Eddie down on the couch and told him. He wasn’t surprised when Eddie didn’t cry, but he was surprised when he leaned over and threw up on the coffee table. They cleaned it up, put their uneaten dinner in the fridge, and took a taxi to the airport. Richie had not been to Derry since his mother’s birthday two years ago. In fact he had been hoping to make that the last time he ever went back, but Eddie didn’t want to go alone, and Richie would never dream of making him.

Richie’s dad picked them up at the airport and dropped them off at Sonia’s house. They had to take care of what the lawyer called  _ her personal effects,  _ and then Wentworth would take them to the funeral home so Eddie could sign the release for her burial. 

It took Eddie nearly ten minutes to build up the courage to go inside his childhood home. Richie stood silently while he talked himself into it, and then barreled in the front door like if he didn’t do it as quickly as possible, he’d never get it done. 

The house was eerily quiet. Every time Richie remembered being in this house, the television was on, and Sonia and her velour pant suit were making enough noise to beat the band. Now, though, it was silent. The clocks hadn’t been wound and stood still at various times, and the utilities were off, so the refrigerator stood dormant and the lights didn’t turn on. 

“Feels like death in here,” Eddie commented, his voice low in the shadows.

Richie looked at him, shocked. “The fuck? Was that a joke? Are you making jokes?”

“Someone had to. It felt wrong.”

“I love you,” Richie said emphatically. “Fuck.”

“Thanks,” Eddie remarked dryly. “Should we start upstairs?” 

Richie nodded, and let Eddie lead the way. Eddie’s room wasn’t the way he’d left it, but they hadn’t expected it to be. It really couldn’t even be considered Eddie’s room anymore. Stepping into it was like hitting rewind on a VHS tape; it wasn’t the room Eddie had left behind at age nineteen. The room looked more like it had when Eddie was eleven. Pastel yellow walls, Eddie’s favorite books from middle school on the shelves, his bronzed baby shoes on the desk, a stuffed rabbit Eddie had thrown away in high school perched on the neatly made bed. A shiver crawled up Richie’s spine as he surveyed the pristine room. The Eddie he knew didn’t belong there, it was a place for the version of Eddie that Sonia had imagined. 

“Weirdsville,” Richie murmured. 

“I threw that damn rabbit away, I know I did,” Eddie worried his bottom lip. He seemed like a stranger in his own home, and it was a jarring sight. 

“Do you want me to do this room?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said immediately. His gaze fell on the nightstand. A clear plastic pill divider with the days of the week printed on top sat there with an inhaler lying next to it. Richie saw something change in his face. “Throw that shit out.” 

“Sure thing, Spaghetti. When you box up dear old Mom’s stuff, save me a negligee to remember her by.”  
  
“Gross,” Eddie muttered as he turned and left the room. 

There was a thin layer of dust over everything, but Richie didn’t waste his time with the things Sonia had decided to keep out. He knew anything that mattered to Eddie would be in a box in the back of the closet, because Sonia could be a master of irony without even trying. Before he started on the closet, he opened every curtain and let sunshine pour into the room. Doing so disturbed a lot of dust, but a little light made the room seem less like a time capsule or a display at a museum, and that satisfied him. He swept the inhaler and pill sorter into the nightstand drawer, and dusted off his hands. 

He turned to the closet. The door was stuck shut with a combination of old paint and Maine humidity, and no amount of rattling the knob and tugging could budge it. 

Richie planned his feet and yanked squarely on the doorknob. The door swung open, and he toppled back onto the floor, landing on his back with a loud, “Fuck me!”

“What?” Eddie shouted from somewhere in the house. “Did you fall? Are you dead? Did my mom come out of the bathroom and murder you?” 

His voice rapidly drew closer as he listed off increasingly improbable scenarios, but Richie had already scrambled to his feet by the time Eddie appeared in the doorway. 

“Door was stuck,” Richie offered by way of explanation. 

Eddie rolled his eyes mightily, so hard that even Richie was impressed, and stalked back off to do whatever it was he’d been doing before Richie had been attacked by Sonia Kaspbrak’s wrathful spirit. 

The closet stood open and nearly empty, just a few long outgrown winter coats and a pair of skates remained inside. Richie pushed aside the skates and crouched on the floor. Sure enough, there was a cardboard box, shoddily taped and hastily shoved into the back corner. Written on the side was a giant  _ R,  _ like Sonia knew who would be coming to get it after she was gone. The thought sent a shiver down Richie’s spine. He pulled the box out of the closet, ripped off the tape, and dumped the contents onto the bed. Suddenly, the label made more sense. Everything inside the box had once belonged to him. There was a walkman, a faded set of Star Wars bubblegum cards, several tapes, a pair of knit socks, a t-shirt, and a hoodie with thumb-holes holes cut in the sleeves. Alongside a few faded folders containing notes and old comics, there was also an envelope that Richie assumed contained photos of himself and their other friends. Eddie was a collector of moments, and his bedroom walls had been covered in photos of them all. The t-shirt was what drew his interest, though. It was a wadded up, worn-out J. Geils Band baseball shirt that said  _ LOVE STINKS!  _ in giant, swooping font, that Richie had taken from his dad’s closet in 1984. 

He remembered a younger Richie wearing it, a version of himself with a peeling sunburn on his forehead and dirt under his fingernails. The greasy smudges on his glasses would’ve been visible from space, and Eddie would have taken them off his face and said,  _ Here, Milhouse, let me clear your field of vision,  _ and Richie would’ve waited with bated breath for Eddie to gently set his glasses back on the bridge of his nose and brush his hair over his ears with gentle, fastidious fingers. 

It was weird, to find the shirt among Eddie’s stuff. He thought he’d lost it when he was fourteen, after a day at the quarry when they’d stripped to their shorts and Richie’s clothes had been scattered every which way. He’d gone home in Bill’s plaid flannel and mourned the loss of his own shirt, but apparently, Eddie had ended up with it. Richie felt lightheaded, suddenly. 

“Hey, Eds,” Richie called. 

Eddie appeared in the doorway. “Huh?” 

“You didn’t tell me you kept this,” Richie held up the shirt. 

A blush rose in Eddie’s cheeks. “Oh. Yeah. I thought she’d throw it away. I used to sleep in it.” 

“You...stole my shirt, and slept in it?” Richie held the shirt up in front of him. “This thing hasn’t been washed since the Eighties, has it?” 

“Probably not,” Eddie assented. “I wouldn’t let her wash it. It smelled like you.” 

“Jesus Christ, Eds.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Don’t be, just, Jesus,” Richie took off his t-shirt and slipped the old one on. “All that time?” 

“Nearly my whole life, Rich,” Eddie murmured. “I don’t know how you didn’t figure it out.” 

“I was blind, I guess. Do you want to keep it?” 

“Don’t you want it back?”  
  
“No, it’s yours,” Richie looked down at the faded design. “I’ll wear it for a day and make it nice and smelly, and then you can have it back.”  
  
“You’re disgusting,” Eddie grumbled, but he didn’t object. 

“You love me,” Richie said offhandedly. He gathered everything up and put it back in the box. As an afterthought, he grabbed the stuffed rabbit off the bed, pitched it into the closet, and slammed the door shut. He turned back to the bed and picked up the box. “Ready to go?” 

When he turned to look at Eddie, he stopped still, the box in his hands. Eddie was staring at him, with tears in his eyes and one hand clamped over his mouth. 

“What’s wrong?”

Eddie shook his head. He blinked the tears away and dropped his hand to his side. “I just…love you, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Richie said slowly. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Eddie’s voice was soft. “I’m done. By the way. There’s nothing I want to keep.”

Richie nodded wordlessly. The moment stretched, and Richie figured Eddie had more to say, so he didn’t say anything, and after a beat, Eddie inhaled and opened his mouth. At that same time, a car horn sounded outside. Eddie closed his mouth so fast, the click of his teeth was audible. 

“I guess that’s my dad,” Richie said. 

Eddie smiled and followed Richie out of his room, down the stairs, and to the car. He didn’t look back. 

The ride to the funeral home was silent. Every so often, Wentworth would cast a concerned glance at the rearview mirror, and Richie would meet his eyes every time. Eddie sat like a statue, his mouth a firm line and his hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. 

“How was your flight?” Maggie asked. 

“Fine, thanks mom,” Richie replied. 

Eddie swallowed hard. 

When they arrived, Richie reached for the door handle, ready to escape the car, but Eddie’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. 

“What, Eds?” Richie asked.

Maggie and Went exchanged a look, then glanced into the backseat. Eddie looked to where their concerned faces were reflected back at them, and blurted, in a voice a little too loud for the space, “Would you two please come with us.” 

It wasn’t phrased as a question. Richie winced at the way Eddie’s fingers dug into his wrist. For a moment, nobody said anything. 

Then, Eddie said, “Never mind, that was a stupid question, sorry, I’ll handle it,” but Maggie cut him off with a gentle, “Eddie.” 

Suddenly, there were tears in his eyes. “Yeah, Maggie.”

“Of course we will.” 

Wentworth turned the key in the ignition, and Richie wrenched his door open. He pulled Eddie out of the backseat after him, because they were still attached at the wrist, and Eddie’s grip didn’t seem to be letting up. 

The funeral home was bland and unassuming, with sand colored stucco and well maintained hedges. If not for the fleet of hearses parked in the front lot, it might have been anything. There might not have been dead bodies inside. 

“Is she...here?” Richie asked clumsily. 

“Yeah,” Eddie replied, his voice tight. “She made most of her own arrangements.”

“What a control freak,” Richie muttered. 

Eddie laughed bitterly. “Yeah.” 

They hung back in the parking lot, long enough that a thin, blonde man, by the name of Kenneth, had to come outside to greet them. He talked them through the proceedings as he led them to his office at the back of the funeral parlor, but only Richie’s parents listened. Eddie held Richie’s hand tightly and looked down at the carpet. Richie let his hand be squeezed, gawking at the price tags on the open caskets as they made their way. 

The office was next door to the mortuary, for convenience's sake, Kenneth said, and Richie wanted so badly to make a joke, but Eddie was still white knuckling his hand and his mother was eyeing him severely. 

Eddie sat down on a bench by the office door, and didn’t look up as Kenneth launched into an explanation about the estate and other proceedings. “So, once we have all the paperwork in order, we can take the next step to care for the body.” 

“Will there be a service?” Went asked.

“No, she didn’t provide for one in the will.” 

“Eddie? Would you like to change that?”

“No, I just want to bury her,” Eddie said quickly. He was sitting, staring at his shoes, his hand still in Richie’s.   
  
_ Kenneth _ , Richie said to himself in a mental mimic of Kenneth’s own voice, recoiled a little at Eddie’s callous attitude. “Well, that can certainly be arranged.” 

“Fantastic,” Maggie interjected. “Is there anything to sign? Anything else to handle? We’re on a tight schedule.”  
  
“I’m sorry, who are you, exactly?”  
  
“His mother-in-law,” Maggie said breezily. “Is there a release form for the body?”  
  
“Body,” Eddie echoed faintly. 

“Yes, let me go get it,” Kenneth gave Eddie a strange look. “He’ll need to sign it.”  
  
“Do I have to see her?” Eddie asked.

“No.”

“Give me the paper.” 

Once they were alone in the office, Richie knelt in front of Eddie. “Look at me.”  
  
Eddie did, and he said, in a very small voice, “Body.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Richie reached up and held Eddie’s hands. “You don’t have to look at it. Her. Whatever. All you have to do is sign the paper, and we can go home. Yeah? It’s okay.”

Eddie looked over at Richie’s parents. “I hadn’t spoken to her in five years.”  
  
Went cleared his throat. “That’s certainly understandable, Edward.” 

“She’s dead,” Eddie looked back down at Richie.

“Yeah,” Richie said carefully. “She is.” 

“I don’t want to see her, but would you…” he pulled one of his hands free from Richie’s and gestured vaguely. “I just want to be sure, not like they could’ve made a mistake, she would’ve come home and stopped me from going through her stuff if she wasn’t really, but I can’t…she keeps coming back, Rich.” 

“Hey,” Richie caught on. “She can’t hurt you anymore. She’s never gonna call again, and she’s not gonna show up at our apartment, and she’s not going to walk in that door. She’s in the back, in a box, in a fridge, and she’s not fucking coming back. Okay? You want me to double check?”

“No, I believe you,” Eddie said feebly. “Fuck.” 

“If you want, Eddie, we can liquidate the estate for you,” Maggie offered, her voice gentle. Richie said a silent prayer of gratitude for his mother. “It would be no trouble.” 

“Please,” Eddie said. His voice was terribly small, like childhood again, and Richie hated it. 

Kenneth came back in then, and made another odd face at Richie sitting on the floor, but he opted not to comment. “Just sign this, and everything else will be taken care of.” 

Eddie took the pen and paper handed to him, rested it on his knee, and scribbled his signature on the dotted line. “Great.” 

“If you don’t mind, my wife and I would like to view the body,” Went said. 

“Fine,” Kenneth replied, and then to Eddie, “I assume that’s alright with you.” 

Eddie nodded. Maggie and Wentworth rose from their chairs and followed Kenneth out of the room. 

“What do you want to do now, Eds?” Richie asked gently. 

“I want to go home.” 

“Alright, well, I think my mom made dinner, so when they come back we’ll-” 

“No, I want to go home,” Eddie stressed. “Right now. Please, Richie.” 

“Like...Boston? You want to go to the airport right now?” 

“Yes,” Eddie closed his eyes. “Please.” 

Richie shrugged, and stood up. They went back through the showroom, and Eddie raised an eyebrow at the caskets.

“Did we come through here before?”

“Yeah,” Richie held the door open for him.

“And you didn’t make a joke?”

“It didn’t seem like the time,” Richie said. “My mom would’ve killed me if I’d upset you by making a stupid comment.”

“What a place for her to do it,” Eddie commented. “She could’ve dropped you right in a coffin. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”

Richie laughed and opened the car door. “Thank you, Dino. Get in. No more dead people jokes.” 

Eddie made an affronted sound, but he got into the car and leaned back against the seat. 

They waited for Richie’s parents in comfortable silence, with Richie’s foot propping the car door open and Eddie’s legs draped over Richie’s lap. Richie couldn’t help but admire Eddie as he sat, his eyes closed and both his hands wrapped around one of Richie’s. His face was peaceful, and Richie felt a little overwhelmed. Eddie didn’t open his eyes when Wentworth and Maggie opened the door and climbed into the car. 

“Hey, dad,” Richie said. “Can you just take us right to the airport?”

“Sure thing,” Went said, and then he looked back at Richie. He paused, and said, “Is that my shirt?” 

  
  


* * *

JULY

* * *

On a humid Tuesday in the middle of July, Eddie stood in the hall outside his apartment and stared at the number on the door. In one hand, he held his door key, and in the other, he held the end of a leash. On the other end of the leash was a six month old chocolate labrador with huge brown eyes and the unfortunate name of Padme. Inside the apartment, Richie was listening to the radio very loudly, completely unaware that Eddie was standing in the hallway like a stranger, clutching a leash tightly enough that his fingers were numb. The dog sensed his unease, and she whined lowly. 

“It’s okay,” Eddie said, quietly enough he barely heard his own voice over the music coming from inside. “He’ll love you, don’t worry.” 

The dog looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and Eddie knew she wasn’t capable of judgement, but it felt like she was saying  _ I’m not the one who needs to stop worrying.  _

Eddie was not a spontaneous person. He liked to know what was happening at least eight hours in advance. In the same respect, Richie did not like change. Surprises, sure. Last minute decisions to go out, yes. Life altering change that would throw off their highly predictable routine and dynamic? Absolutely not. 

On top of that, Eddie had ulterior motives. It wasn’t dishonestly, not really, because he wasn’t lying about anything, but he did bring the dog home in hopes of broaching an impossible topic. Richie didn’t like impossible topics. He could barely handle relatively difficult topics with any sense of earnesty. Emotional vulnerability was not one of his strong suits. Eddie hoped that a dog might loosen him up, somehow, but now that he was thinking about it, he wasn’t quite sure what the plan was beyond  _ give Richie a dog.  _

“Don’t worry,” he told himself sternly, and then unlocked the door. The music was even louder now, and Padme shot him a weary glance. He ignored it, and led her into the living room. 

“Stay here,” he instructed as he unclipped her leash and tossed it to the coffee table. “I have to tell him about you.” 

He felt silly for talking to her like she could understand, but she stayed where he had put her, and didn’t follow him as he went to get Richie. 

Richie was in the kitchen, banging some pots and pans around. The stereo was turned up offensively loud, and The Beach Boys were difficult enough to stomach at moderate volume, but nobody on Earth needed to listen to _Kokomo_ that loudly. Nobody except Richie, who was currently in front of the stove, wearing a hot pink flowered apron and shimmying to the music. 

“Bodies in the sand,” Richie crooned atonally. Eddie had never understood why he did that. Richie could sing, he just chose not to. With another resounding clang of a spatula against a frying pan, Richie thrust clumsily against the stove front and performed a half turn. Half, because he saw Eddie standing there and immediately froze. His face lit up in delight. 

“Dance with me, Eddie, my love!” 

“Absolutely not,” Eddie said. “We could get evicted over this.”

Richie was not listening. “Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya, come on! This is our song!”

“No, it is not. We have never listened to this song. You can’t decide that without me.”

Richie held out his spatula and gestured at Eddie. “Come on, pretty mama!” 

“Do not,” Eddie said, but Richie was already advancing towards him, his arms outstretched. 

Eddie let himself be pulled into a loose frame, but he stoically refused to smile as Richie led them in a clumsy sort of circle, with some unnecessary hip shaking and more toneless singing. 

“Lighten up, Spaghetti! This song is about cocktails! That’s like the best compound word ever! One of your favorite things combined with something else to make another of your favorite things!” 

“I’m leaving you,” Eddie nearly had to shout to be heard over the saxophone solo, but he was laughing. 

“Sure thing, baby!” Richie replied cheerfully. He pulled Eddie closer to him and rocked them to the beat, which seemed nauseatingly fast. 

“We are not playing this song at our wedding,” Eddie said. 

The song began to fade out then, and Richie took a small step back. His arm was still around Eddie’s waist, and there was still a manic smile on his face. “You planning to marry me, Eds? When were you gonna ask? Can’t marry a man without asking him first. My mom asking you to marry me isn’t the same thing. Doesn’t count.”

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie said, but he didn’t pull away. 

The next song began, still loud, but it was a song Eddie didn’t know, and not really one you could dance to. Richie didn’t let go of him. 

“Hey,” Richie said softly. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“I was gone for three hours.”

Richie kissed him on the forehead. “Doesn’t matter. Still glad you’re back.” 

He wrapped both of his arms around Eddie’s shoulders and crushed him to his chest. 

“Okay, okay,” Eddie pushed against Richie’s ribs gently. “I can’t marry you if you strangle me.” 

Richie laughed, but he released him. “I’m gonna finish dinner.”

“What is it?”

“Spaghetti.”

“I rescind my previous offers of matrimony.”

“Whatever you just said doesn’t count because I don’t know what half of those words mean. Go take a shower.”

“You know what rescind means.”

Richie grinned and went back to the stove. “Seriously, go shower, dinner will be ready when you get out.” 

“Okay,” Eddie said, but he didn’t turn to leave the kitchen right away. He waited for a moment and watched Richie stir spaghetti sauce with a slotted spatula. There was a big red stain on his pink apron, and his hair was sticking out in every direction. His socks had holes in them, and he was wearing Eddie’s t-shirt, which was a size too small for him, and every time he moved the waistband of his boxers would show over the hem of his sweatpants. Eddie felt dizzy. “Hey, Richie.”

Richie glanced up at him. “Yeah, Eds?”

“I love you.”

Richie‘s face softened. “I love you, too.” 

Eddie took a deep breath and crossed the small kitchen to stand by Richie. There was a bemused smile on Richie’s face, and Eddie tried to scowl at him, but he couldn’t. Richie closed his eyes, expecting a kiss. Eddie rolled his eyes, but he kissed him. 

“I, uh, got you something,” Eddie said. 

“Okay,” Richie’s eyes were still closed. “Is it bigger than a bread box?”

“Yeah, definitely.” 

“Is it a new, slightly larger breadbox?” 

“Shut up. It’s in the living room.”

Richie snacked a loud, dramatic kiss to Eddie’s forehead and untied his apron. He tossed it to the counter, turned the sauce down to a low simmer, and sauntered out of the kitchen. Eddie struggled valiantly to keep the smile off his face, and followed him closely. 

In the living room, Padme had made herself at home by jumping up onto the coffee table, and her tongue hung out of her mouth as she panted. She was staring at Richie with her wide, soft brown eyes, and her tail was thumping with excitement. Richie was standing behind the sofa, frozen in shock. 

“Eds,” he stage-whispered, “We have an intruder.”

“No, she lives here,” Eddie said nonchalantly. “Her name is Padme.” 

“But you hate dogs.” 

“Yeah, but I love you. And she’s not my dog, anyway. She’s your dog.” 

Richie fish-mouthed. “Holy shit.” 

After another moment of stunned silence, he laughed helplessly, and sat down on the floor behind the couch. When he disappeared from view, Padme craned her head curiously and made an inquisitive sound. 

Richie laughed again and said, “Here, girl.” 

In an instant, she leapt off the coffee table and tackled him. She walked around in his lap in a circle and licked his face and pawed at his shoulders, all while Richie laughed and mumbled nonsense at her. 

“I love her,” he said.

Eddie smiled. “I knew you would.” 

“I gotta call Stan,” Richie said, but he didn’t get up from the floor, and Padme did not stop licking him or smacking Richie in the side of the head with her tail. “Eddie, this is incredible.” 

“Yeah? You’re sufficiently surprised?” Eddie sat down on the floor next to them. Padme had tucked her head into the curve of Richie’s shoulder, and was finally still. She blinked slowly while Richie ran his hands through her fur. 

“Hell yeah,” Richie smiled at Eddie, that huge, inane smile that looked like it hurt his face. Eddie’s favorite smile. “You just keep raising the bar, Spaghetti. Don’t know how you’ll top this one, but I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.” 

“Well,” Eddie cleared his throat. “While you’re thinking about how great I am, there’s something I want to talk to you about.” 

Padme barked suddenly, loud and disruptive, and Richie reeled back in shock. “She’s got a set of lungs. Should’ve named her Patti.” 

“I think you should see a therapist.” 

“Wow,” was all Richie said at first. His face was wide with surprise, and he was very still, like if he moved, Eddie would pounce. 

“I’m serious, Rich.”

“Is this because I cried last time we had sex?” 

“You cry every time we have sex,” Eddie said. 

Richie made a face, but they both knew he couldn’t deny that was true. It had gotten to the point were Eddie passed Richie a tissue before he pulled out so that Richie could cry while Eddie tied off the condom. Otherwise it was like one of Eddie’s worst nightmares, with snot and semen everywhere, and Richie crying into the pillowcase. 

“Well, then what?”

“I think you’re overcompensating for your mental health by putting too much energy into other things. You’re doing really well in school, and it’s great, but I think other parts of your life are suffering because of it.” 

“Is that how therapists talk? I hate it.” 

Eddie scowled. “Therapy has been really helpful for me, Rich. I know things have been weird since Derry, and I don’t-”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it, losing your mom was real hard for me,” Richie interjected, but his voice was a little strained, “The love of my life, gone, just like that.” 

“Rich,” Eddie said quietly, and he wasn’t quite exasperated, but he was definitely a little frustrated. “You can’t make a joke and then pretend it never happened. That didn’t work when you were a kid, and it’s not going to work now.”

“Eds,” tears welled up in Richie’s eyes, and his grip on Padme’s fur tightened. “Don’t. Alright? I’m sick of thinking about it. I’m sick of being scared.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to be,” Eddie stressed. “Or maybe you could try being scared of something else. You can’t let it ruin your life, Richie.” 

“What the fuck else is there to be scared of?” Richie muttered. “What’s scarier than a bully?” 

“I don’t know. Monsters, I guess.”

“Fuck, Eds, if I was a monster I’d probably be scared of you.” 

“But you’re not, Richie,” Eddie said in a low voice. “You’re not a monster.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Richie warned gently. 

“Just one appointment,” Eddie said. 

“Isn’t my life hard enough already? I could be beaten up for being Jewish, or gay, or a loudmouth,” Richie told him. “It’s a grab bag. It’s an act of bravery every time I leave the apartment. Do we really need to add therapy? Make me more of a basket case? I might as well wear a sandwich board that says  _ Please punch me in the face.  _ I mean, you never know, I could be the next big gay panic trial, they could make a fucking industry out of it. Kids will start going to law school just to learn how to make cases for assholes who beat up queers. They’ll rename it in my honor, maybe something snappy like  _ The Henry Bowers Defense _ . We wouldn’t wanna rob all those potential young bigots of their promising careers in criminal law, would we, Eds?” 

Eddie paused a moment and watched Richie clench his fists, then relax. “Richie, that’s...do you think about that a lot?”

“About what?” 

“About dying.” 

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Richie said, and he pulled away from Eddie. His arms were around Padme’s neck, and she was sitting very still, with her eyes trained on Eddie’s face and her ears pricked at the sound of Richie’s voice. 

“You have to, Richie.” 

“I fucking love you,” Richie said vehemently, “And I will do anything for you, you know that. But I really do not want to go to a shrink.” 

Eddie wanted to reach out and touch him, to reassure him, but there was a distance between them, and Richie had put it there, which made it insurmountable. A deep, yawning chasm of six inches that Eddie had no idea how to bridge. In the silence, Padme licked Richie’s chin, and Richie absently kissed her on the nose. 

“Please don’t shut me out,” Eddie murmured. “I just don’t want you to be scared forever.” 

“I might not have a choice, Eds,” Richie said softly. 

The sadness in his voice made Eddie’s chest ache, and he couldn’t stop tears from filling his eyes. “Okay.”

“Fuck, Eds, don’t cry,” Richie whispered. “This means that much to you?”  
  
“You mean that much to me, you stubborn jerk,” Eddie said tearfully. “It kills me you think you have to be scared and ashamed because some fucking redneck took out his own problems on you. You were just a kid, Rich, and he’s in jail, and you’re here and you’re alive, but it feels like you’re just waiting for another Henry to come and finish the job.” 

“Am I breakin’ your heart, old man?” Richie’s attempt at a voice was half-hearted at best, and Eddie didn’t laugh. 

He wiped at his eyes and moved to stand up. As he pushed himself to his feet, Richie caught him by the wrist. 

“One appointment,” he said, in a very serious voice. “I pick the therapist, and if I don’t want to go back, I don’t.” 

“Okay,” Eddie breathed, and he knew he’d done a very bad job at masking his relief, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“I love you,” Richie said.   
  
“I know you do,” Eddie replied. 

“I love you more,” Richie said to Padme. 

She barked once, loudly enough that Richie winced, and Eddie laughed. 

“I’m going to finish dinner,” Richie pulled Eddie’s hand to him and kissed him on the wrist. “Go shower.” 

“Okay,” Eddie said. He watched as Richie led Padme into the kitchen, murmuring nonsense to her and stumbling when she wormed her way between his legs. 

As soon as he was alone in the living room, Eddie relaxed. The whole thing could’ve gone worse, and Richie hadn’t been totally opposed to the idea. Maybe he could talk him into seeing a therapist regularly, or at least see someone about medication. There was hope for all of those things, and Eddie was content to call the evening a success. Richie called him for dinner, and Eddie felt affection surge in his chest as he went into the kitchen to join Richie and Padme. 

* * *

AUGUST 

* * *

Richie Tozier was really good at life. He was kicking life’s ass. Showing life who was boss. If life was a test, he was passing with flying colors. At the ripe old age of twenty three, he was nearly a success story. He and Eddie still lived in the same apartment, and Richie’s parents still called once a week, and Eddie wore his aunt’s ring every day, and things were great. Fantastic, even, because a s it turned out, Richie was really good at school and therapy was pretty fucking awesome. 

He read political theory for fun. He went to rallies, and got arrested. He went to a die-in and came home with a black eye and he knelt on the floor in front of Eddie and held him by the waist and cried into his stomach for nearly an hour. After that, he didn’t go to any more of those. But he loved rallies, and he made some friends who likes to talk about politics as much as he did, and every time Eddie said he hated his job, Richie would advise him to  _ lose his chains,  _ to which Eddie would reply  _ yeah, and then we will lose our apartment.  _ Richie would always come back with some smart remark about how the worker actually had everything to lose including his livelihood, and that’s what was wrong with the system.

Oppressive nature of the system aside, Richie was glad things were going so well, because it meant he had something to boast about the next time all their friends were together. Richie and Eddie were hosting the get together for the first time ever, so Richie would need all the conversation fodder he could get, Eddie had spent the week leading up to the day in a state of frantic anxiety. Their apartment had been cleaned five times, and Eddie was working on a sixth when Richie took Padme into the bathtub and closed the shower curtain around them. 

“Richie!” 

Richie groaned. Padme lifted her head at the sound of Eddie’s voice. 

“Richie! If you’re hiding in the bathtub again, I’m going to drown you!”

“I’m peeing!” Richie lied. 

“Unless you’re passing a stone, it doesn’t take you eight minutes to pee!”

The bathroom door banged open before Richie could respond. Richie pulled open the shower curtain slowly, and saw Eddie standing there, wearing Richie’s  _ Kiss The Cook!  _ apron and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. 

“God damn it, Richie,” Eddie fumed, but his scowl was superficial. “Why are you hiding again?”

“You get picky when you’re stressed, so I figured I better let you take it out on the kitchen sink, instead of me.”

“And the dog?”

“She doesn’t like the vacuum,” Richie wrapped his arms around Padme and sank further into the bathtub. He was too tall as it was, and his legs were propped up on the lip of the bath by the spigot. Padme was draped over his torso, and her tail thumped against the drain while Richie hugged her. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said, his face screwed up in an odd expression. “Am I being demanding?”

“Always, yeah,” Richie teased. “It’s okay, I just think we only need to mop the kitchen floor twice before company arrives.”

“I want it to be right,” Eddie said. He leaned against the doorframe and ran a hand through his hair. “You know this is important.” 

“I do know,” Richie said. “There’ll be many people here in less than an hour, and they’re all very important to you, but they’re not going to care if we didn’t reupholster the couch specifically for the occasion.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie scoffed, but it was without heat. “You’re right. Aren’t you nervous?” 

“Oh, I’m shitting a brick,” Richie said, but then he shrugged. “You’re an excellent housekeeper, Eduardo. Don’t stress. It’s no sweat. It’s Easy Street. You’re Betty Crocker.”

“I can’t cook.”

“Then I’m Betty Crocker. You’re Donna Reed.” 

“She’s an actress. Do you seriously not know the names of any famous maids?” 

“Fine, you’re Mr. fucking Clean. How’s that? Can I get out of the bathtub now or will you get mad that I’m breathing up all the clean air and there won’t be any left for our guests?”

Eddie took a deep breath and planted his hands on his hips, but before he could launch into a tirade, there was a knock on the front door. Padme leapt out of the bathtub and ran to the door, barking excitedly. 

“Oh, I bet that’s a guest now. Better take off the gloves, Alice.”

“Shut up,” Eddie grumbled, but he peeled off the rubber gloves and took off the apron. 

Richie clambered out of the bathtub and grinned at Eddie. “Shall we, Mrs. Garrett?”

Eddie smiled back and stalked out of the bathroom with Richie close on his heels. He answered the door, and Bill came in, followed by a tall redhead. 

“Jesus, Bill,” Richie exclaimed. “Have you got a type, or what?”

Bill shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit, Richie.”

Richie grinned affably and looked back at the redhead. She was sensibly dressed, and her smile was deep and amused. 

“I’m Audra,” she said.

“Cool,” Richie said. “That’s Padme.”

“From Star Wars?”

“No, Lucasfilm stole the name from us. We’re part of a class action lawsuit.” 

“Class action? For intellectual property theft?” 

Richie pointed at Audra. “I like you.”

“Thanks?” she arched an eyebrow and gave him a look, like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. “I don’t think I like you yet, but we’ll get there. Maybe.”

Eddie ushered their guests from the front door to the sofa before disappearing into the kitchen, and Richie settled himself on the floor, preparing to make small talk. 

“So, Bill, how the fuck are you? Do your books still suck?”

“Yeah,” Bill said morosely. “It’s the endings, man. I just can’t seem to figure them out.”

“Voice sounds better. New therapist?”

“Two therapists.”

Richie nodded sagely. “Personally, I only need one, but you were a real head case in high school, Billiam, so that makes sense.” 

Audra looked offended at that, and Bill looked shocked at the mention of Richie attending therapy, but they were saved from entering further serious conversation by another knock at the door. The sound of barking and running came from the bedroom, and Eddie dashed out of the kitchen and whipped open the front door. 

“Beat you to it,” he said to a dejected looking Padme as she meandered into the living room and flopped onto Richie’s lap. 

Ben and Bev came in, and Richie watched from the floor as they hugged their way around the room. Bev dropped down on the floor next to him, and Ben sat on Eddie’s armchair.

Bev turned her cheek towards him, and Richie dropped a kiss on her face. “How’s married life?”

“That’s a question I should be asking you,” she retorted, but her cheeks were pink. “It’s going well. Great, in fact. We’re talking about kids.”

Eddie perked up at that. “Really? I might be an uncle?”

“Eddie, dearest, all you had to do was ask,” Richie said, his voice saccharine. “I’d bear you a child.”

There was a collective groan from the room. 

“Gross,” Audra said offhandedly. 

“Fuck you,” Eddie scowled and went back into the kitchen. 

“Things are fine with you two, I see,” Ben said. 

“Never better,” Richie declared, his voice a deep southern twang. “It’s domestic bliss. I do the cooking, cleaning, sewing, and child rearing. Every other day he ventures into the wilderness and brings back a rabbit for me to skin for supper. My Ma and Pa promised us they’d come down in the wagon this summertime, and bring me my hope chest, so I may have my fancy table linens and pantaloons. It’s a humble existence, but I am grateful we didn’t succumb to diptheria, as my husband is prone to worrying we might.” 

Bev rolled her eyes and shoved at his shoulder.

“That voice is getting better,” Ben said kindly.

“Better?” Audra asked. “What the fuck did it sound like before?” 

Richie laughed along with the group, but he felt his nerves mounting. These were his friends, but he still felt the need to impress them. Where Eddie cleaned and meal prepped and ironed his polo shirt four times, Richie had prepared jokes and rehearsed his  _ everything is great  _ speech in the mirror for hours on end. They loved him, but Richie still needed them to know he was worthy of it. He wasn’t sure how to make them see that if they were only five minutes into the evening and they were already heckling. He’d barely told any jokes yet. 

“Richie!” Eddie called, his voice startling Richie out of his thoughts. “Get the door!”

“What? There’s nobody at the,” Richie paused when someone knocked crisply on the doorframe. “How the fuck did you know?”

“He called!”

Richie’s palms were sweaty when he stood up to open the door. On the other side was Stan, and he was wearing a blue cable knit sweater, despite the fact it was August. He was smiling warmly, before Richie grabbed his arm to pull him into a hug. 

“Staniel. The Maniel,” Richie said as they embraced. “Cocker spaniel.”

Stan laughed. “Hi, Rich.”

“Wow,” Bill said. “How long has it been since you two have seen each other?” 

Richie and Stan pulled apart and exchanged a look. Eddie poked his head out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, I assumed you two would keep in contact,” Ben gestured between Richie and Stan. 

Eddie rolled his eyes and said, “Guys, Stan lives downstairs. His apartment is right below ours. Richie saw him yesterday.”

There was a beat of still, shocked silence, and then Bev laughed. Soon, everyone was laughing again, even Stan, and they didn’t realize Richie had left the apartment door open until Mike walked in and said, “Damn, who told a joke?”

“Me,” Richie replied.

“Nah,” Mike said with a grin. “I know it wasn’t you. Everybody’s laughing.”

“Wow,” Richie deadpanned. “In my own home, Mike. In front of my own dog.”

“Lighten up, Dick,” Mike said with a laugh as he leaned down the shake Padme’s paw. “How is everybody?” 

“Fine,” Bill chimed in. “We’re still trying to figure out who the dog belongs to. She seems to like Richie, but Eddie lives here as far as we can tell, so we’re placing bets.” 

“She’s my dog,” Richie explained. “Eddie gave her to me as an anniversary present. You guys have been here five minutes and you already have a betting pool going? What the fuck. I never even left the room.” 

“We work fast,” Ben said with a shrug. 

“Well, it’s my dog. Could anybody else’s dog do this? Watch,” Richie said. “Hey, Padme.” 

At the sound of her name, she pricked up her ears and turned away from Mike, who shook his head and closed the front door. 

“Hold it!” Richie commanded, and Padme froze, her mouth open in an approximation of a smile. Richie raised his hands and held up two finger guns. “Pew pew!” 

Padme flinched twice when Richie fired his finger guns, and then fell over dramatically, like she’d been hit.

“You taught your dog to die?” Ben asked, horror apparent in his tone.

“No, that’s the Star Wars trick. Hey, Padme.”

Padme opened an eye and looked at Richie, but she didn’t stand up. 

“Play dead,” Richie ordered. 

Padme rolled onto her back and stuck all four legs in the air. Her tongue lolled out, and her eyes were open. The only giveaway was her tail, which was pounding against the floor ceaselessly. 

“Wow, Richie,” Stan said. “She’s gotten really good at that.” 

“You know how he taught her to do that?” Eddie asked. “He fell down on the kitchen floor next to her in the exact same pose. It took him six weeks. Our downstairs neighbors complained to the landlord because he’d just drop like a sack of potatoes and Padme would start barking because she thought he was seriously hurt.”

“Isn’t Stan your downstairs neighbor?” Audra asked.

“Yes,” Stan said flatly. 

“Wow,” Bev admired. “That’s fucking cool, Richie.” 

“Thanks,” Richie said with a grin. “Padme! Come give me a kiss.” 

Padme stood up and walked out of the room. The room erupted into laughter at that, with Eddie laughing loudest of all. 

“If it doesn’t work on me, why would it work on the dog?”

“She loves me more than you do.”  
  
“Not possible,” Eddie said. 

“Ugh, gross, fuck off,” Bev shrugged theatrically. “Save that for later.” 

“Is anybody thirsty?” Ben interjected. “I’m taking a mixology course this year as an elective, and I make a pretty mean mixed drink.”

Everyone stood and followed Ben into the small kitchen, relaying drink orders as they went. Eddie stayed behind and focused a small smile on Richie. 

“You doing okay?”

“I think so. A little nervous, but I know the kitchen floor is extra clean, so things should be fine.”

“Rich,” Eddie said in a low voice. “You know they love you, right?” 

“Right,” Richie echoed. “Yeah, I know.” 

“You don’t have to impress them,” Eddie stepped into Richie’s space and looked up at him. “They’re your friends. It’s okay.”

Richie frowned and looked down at Eddie. “How did you know?”

“I know you,” Eddie said simply. “And you started telling really juvenile jokes again. You only regress like that when you’re trying to prove something.” 

“All my jokes are juvenile, Eds,” Richie protested weakly. “I only save the refined stuff for you.”

“And I’m honored,” Eddie teased, “But it’s okay to just be you for right now. You’re overthinking this.”

“I never should’ve told you my therapist thinks the jokes are a defense mechanism,” Richie mumbled, but he kissed Eddie on the forehead and smiled. “I’ll try.”

“I love you,” Eddie said.

“Yeah,” Richie bumped his nose against Eddie’s. “Wanna see if Ben knows how to make a Shirley Temple?” 

“Absolutely,” Eddie took Richie’s hand and pulled him into the kitchen, where he was quickly enveloped by the cramped throng of people in the tiny space. 

Richie hopped up on the counter so he could watch Ben mix cocktails, and every so often he’d inject a comment or wisecrack into the various conversations happening. He was always greeted with a groan or a  _ fuck off, Richie,  _ but he knew by the teasing smiles on his friend’s faces that they were glad to have him around. Richie felt content, surrounded by these people, the ones he’d chosen to live his life with. Eddie’s cheeks were pink from laughing and Stan had jumped up onto the counter next to Richie so that they could share his Shirley Temple, and Richie was relaxed. He was welcome and loved. He was home.


End file.
